


Kissing Dead Pearls

by TalesOfOnyxBats



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood and Injury, Boats and Ships, Character Death, Coping, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Ghost Ships, Harbor Town, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Love Triangles, Ocean, Past Abuse, Recovery, Romance, Sailors, Slice of Life, Summer, Surfing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 59,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25340656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalesOfOnyxBats/pseuds/TalesOfOnyxBats
Summary: Azula and Zuko run their father’s lighthouse. Sokka is a sailor lost at sea, thought to be dead. But in the midst of a storm, Azula sees battered ship sails.
Relationships: Aang/Toph Beifong, Azula/Jet (Avatar), Azula/Sokka (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 117
Kudos: 120





	1. Sails In The Storm

**Author's Note:**

> This is a remake/continuation of https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12518718/2/Blue-Fire-Drabbles

White hot flashes illuminate the sky. They reflect in the wind-woken water and threaten the sand. A crash of thunder roars across the shoreline. It is destructively alluring. If Azula didn't know any better, she would be walking along the beach where the water meets the shore. Even fully aware of the danger, Azula considers, as a passing thought, kicking off her shoes and going for it.

"You're like the storm." Sokka had once told her, before he set out to sea on some sailor's endeavor. "Wild and unpredictable." She recalls his brotherly smile and his arm draped over her shoulder. "Yes siree, you remind me of these stormy nights. Beautiful and dangerous as the lightning and intimidating as the thunder." He had tipped his sailor hat and kissed her on the forehead. She hasn't seen him since.

When the sky isn't raging, she usually goes down to the harbor. It is a marvelous place. A quaint and bustling place, exactly the kind one expects of a little fishing town. The docks are coated in layers upon layers of white paint that constantly chips and flakes away. Azula doesn't know why they even bother at all; between the storms, the stream of feet, the scrapes of the boats, and the constant causal batter of the ocean, the paint never stands a chance. 

She goes there with hopes that one day she'll see Sokka tying and anchoring the _ Pearl Racer _ to the dock. She has had no such luck. And so she'll usually look a few times in each direction before sitting down, dangling her feet in the water, and shedding a few silent tears.

But today is no such day. The meteorologists haven’t called for a storm, in fact they have been hyping tourists up for a sunny vacation. Yet, for the past three days and nights it has been nothing but dark grey skies and perilous waters. Rain battered sands and vacant beaches at the height of a tourist season. Not even the toughest, most boastful, tattoo and muscle covered, sailor dared visit the harbor. As things are, these tough men and women won't even get within a few miles of the sea.

Store owners too, have long since evacuated the boardwalk. Azula hasn't spied Katara opening the town’s esteemed lobster joint for Hakoda since the first server weather forecast rolled across the TV screen. TyLee's family have also closed early—they have stopped offering boat rentals even before Katara's dad hung up the 'closed' sign. Nobody—save for a few unknowing tourists—want boat rides on a day like this anyhow. Mai's family promptly boarded up and barricaded their seaside jewelry shop. Heaven forbid the storm washes away all of their handmade pieces. Even Toph and Aang have skipped out on their sunset rollerblading.

So it is just she and Zuko now. The only pair ballsy enough to weather the storm. They haven't much of a choice really; their father owns the lighthouse but can't be damned to upkeep it himself, he spends much of his time in the 'upscale' bars.

At last, completely entranced by the storm, Azula steps outside. She knows that it's stupid. She knows that it's a dreadful idea, but she can't put it out of her head.

She is intrigued.

Sokka had always made her feel so close to the lightning and thunder. She wants to give him a story when he gets home. He probably has hundreds from his time at sea. Feeling oddly fearless, she watches the tides slap hostile against the rocks on which her lighthouse looms. It is dizzying. For a moment, she thinks of pitching herself off of the tower, if for no other reason than to feel the sensation. To see what it is like to truly be at the mercy of the coast she has grown to know so well. She thinks better of it, and instead takes a step back.

The wind takes a liking to her hair, whipping it haphazardly about. She swears she can hear a shout, but it is swallowed up by the wind as a whale swallows a shiphand. The thunder grows louder—sand shakingly so—and the lightning flashes brighter.

Now that night has fallen, it is the only thing that allows her to see the sea itself. Though that's what it is designed for, not even the beam of the lighthouse can pierce through a wall of clouds this concrete and thick.

The rumbling of the thunder and the groaning of the ocean goes silent for a moment. "Azula get inside!" She finally hears Zuko. He sounds a bit frantic. But Azula doesn't think anything of it, her brother has a history of being over-anxious and somewhat over-bearing. He'd been so ever since their mother fell victim to a hurricane some years ago.

After what seems like forever, the lightning—to Azula's thrill—flares again. This time it's a jagged bolt in the sky, she sees it meet the churning waves. And in its light she notices for the first time, something adrift in the water.

She squints.

"Who is foolish enough to…" the words die on her tongue, she doesn't feel like she needs to finish them.

"Azula get inside, now!" There's a sense of urgency to his voice now.

Another bolt lights the beach.

Azula can now make out the tattered sails of a distressed ship that is bobbing in the rain-mist. In the violently churning waves. 

She shivers.

Something isn't right.

She isn’t sure what that something is, but it isn’t right.

"Azula!" Zuko hollers again. Before she can even turn around, he pulls her back inside. He is breathing somewhat raggedly, he looks terribly shaken. Her wet locks cling to her face.

Azula turns her attention back to the horizon. But even with the next peal of thunder and lightning, she cannot spot the sails again.


	2. The Sea Candle

Rain beats against the side of the lighthouse, it comes down in sheets as Zuko yanks her inside. “Zuko, no!” She calls, her voice is oddly desperate and she can’t say why it is so. “I need to go back out there.”

Zuko flinches. “For what?” He asks. She can see the concern etched on his face. She pries herself from his grasp. 

“I--” She starts. “There’s someone out there.”

“Since when do you care?” He asks, “even if you do care, what do you think you can do for them?”

He is right, she knows he is, every logical part of her knows it. The ship is too distant for her to do anything but reach an arm out and roar with the wind only to have her words swept away by the storm and pulled out to sea. But the feeling, that nagging desire, isn’t of logic. It is something far less rational, something rooted wholly in instinct and yearning. 

“This is about Sokka isn’t it?” He persists, he is gripping her shoulders again, trying to keep her from leaving the house again. She tries to shake his grip off. “You’ve got to stop this! He’s gone, Azula.”

“It’s not about him.” She says as the wind howls against the window and rattles the door in its frame. But it is about him, deep down she knows. Why else would it matter?

“You’re going to get yourself killed.” His eyes widened. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? You’re trying to…”

“No!” She argues quickly. “I’m not. I don’t want to die, because he isn’t dead. Even if he was, I wouldn’t…” 

“Then why are you doing this?” He gestures to the door. 

“Because I saw a ship, it was…”

“There’s no one out there!” He shouts

“There is! There was...” She insists with an almost frantic gesture to the window. The wind throws the door open, her already sopping hair whips in her face and clings to her cheeks and forehead. 

“Shit!” Zuko shouts before throwing himself at the door. “Help me with this.” He huffs. 

With haste, Azula adds her weight. Even with the two of them leaning as heavily as they can against the door, it still threatens to bang open. “Zuzu,” she says through gritted teeth. “I told you that we needed to get a new door.”

“With what money?” He replies, voice just as strained. “Last I checked dad, spent that fund on his drinking habit.” 

Azula frowns. It had been her job to keep him from doing that. Her job, because he is more inclined to listen to her than Zuko. At her own failure her body slackens. It is just enough leeway for the wind to burst the door open. 

A dull ache is the last thing she registers as her body is thrown to the floor. Zuko toppled over her. She isn’t awake long enough to tell if he is also out cold. Hurricane waters rush to wet the entry room.

She wonders if dad would have wanted this. If he would change things if he’d known just how much pressure he has put upon them. If he’d known that he would be drunk in a sailor’s bar while his daughter lie sprawled on the floor with her forehead bloodied, storm kicking up a merciless howl just outside.

**.oOo.**

Lightning illuminates the interior of the Deep Dubloon Saloon, it is the only light to be had now that the storm has raged enough to throw power out. It’s winds shake the entire foundation of the building, not that it has a sturdy structure to begin with. 

Ozai sits with a wooden tankard in his hand. He hasn’t seen a storm like this since the one that stole his wife from him. He stares unseeingly into the nearly empty mug. He almost laughs aloud, it is a storm like this that has him sitting upon the bar stool he inhabits. 

And it would seem that the ocean seeks to remind him of exactly why he is there. 

“Help me with these, will ye?” Requests Khozen. His long silver hair is tangled by rain water and harsh wind. He pants as he chucks another sandbag outside and curses the weathermen for their short sight and lack of warning.

Ozai has known Khozen for many years. The man had been a pirate of sorts, he still has a parrot on his shoulder, though the creature is now safely secured away from the storm in a cage behind the bar. Next to it is a tank housing his iguana.

Ozai downs the rest of his drink and makes his way towards Khozen’s emergency supply of sandbags. He sees no point in it, the sandbags can only do so much for a building that is as ill prepared and rickety as the Deep Dubloon. 

If Zuko and Azula could see the state of the bar…

He knows that they have been wishing on stars for it to be blown to splinters. From the looks of it, they will have their wish.

“This be a mighty storm.” Khozen grumbles. “I’d hate to be at sea now.” His eyes go wide as he recalls that his ship is probably being thrashed mercilessly against the docks, sails ripping, boards splintering, perhaps a bolt of lightning has set it aflame. “The mightiest I’ve seen in…”

“Nearly a decade.” Ozai finishes as he hoists a sandbag atop the one he’d just laid down. “You’re lucky that your bar isn’t as close to the harbor as some of them.” He is lucky that his favorite bar is that much safer. 

Rain pelts him mercilessly as he carries out his task. His eyes journey down the road and closer to the ocean. The lighthouse is a glow, but he can barely see its beacon through such a thick curtain of rainfall and mist. He has the decency to consider, for the first time, that he should be there. He wonders how his children are faring against the storm. His stomach lolls like those waves at the though that a storm could claim two more that he holds dear. 

“C’mon yee big ass, we don’t got time fer starin’ at the sea, not when she’s a brewin’.”

A brewin’ is only scratching the surface. Palm trees bend nearly to the floor, shutters slam against windows or tear off entirely, water rushes to fill streets ready to was cars away, and lawn decor, umbrellas, and lawn chairs sail through the air as though they weigh nothing at all. He can hear from the inside, the buzzing drone of the battery powered weather radio.

He can do nothing now, an attempt to reach the siblings would be certain death. Were he any manner of good father, he would have done it anyhow. But he had been a poor husband and he is a worse father. 

He picks up another sandbag and tosses it onto the pile.

**.oOo.**

Azula’s head throbs. There is a wetness on her face, a wetness all over. Her hair and clothes are soaked through and through. She jerks at the sound of a loud bang. She pulls herself up. The door is slamming in and out in the hands of a wind that is emitting a high pitched scream. Thunder roars, a battle cry, a warning that it is going to seal lives away again, just as it had all those years ago. Once again she and her family are on the frontlines.

She jolts again; Zuzu!

At first she doesn’t think that he is moving. That he isn’t going to. 

She calls out to him but her words are lost beneath the unceasing torrent of raindrops, wind gusts, and thunder. 

It doesn’t matter to terribly because he stirs and sits himself up, eyeing her with a measure of horror before coming to her side. They both shudder. “You almost went out there.” He mentions, nearly too quiet to be heard.

One door to the head and a nap later she fully processes the weight of what she’d almost done and she shudders all over again. “Sorry.” She mumbles. She isn’t sure to whom the apology is for, herself or Zuko.

He pulls her into a tight hug. He hasn’t hugged her in years. He holds her firmly and strokes her hair. Lightning briefly halos their silhouettes as the rain floods in. 

“We have to do something about that door, Zuzu.” She comments. 

It highlights her point by slamming back against the wall, the bang echos with a roll of thunder. 

“How?” He frowns. 

Azula stands and looks about the room. She points to the sofa. “We’ll just rearrange the furniture.” 

“Father isn’t going to like that.”

“Father should be here if he cares that much.” She shrugs. “Besides, we can move it, knock it over, and blame it on the storm.” She pauses. “We’ll probably have it back in place by the time he gets home.” 

“You’re right.” Zuko agrees. 

As she moves towards the sofa, she steals a glance out the window, at the furious ocean.

Ribbons of lightning decorate the sky in faster intervals and rain slides off roofs, pushed by the wind, they fall heavier on the ground gathering in large puddles on sand and on the docs. In a particularly powerful finger of lightning, she sees it again, the ship. 

She can barely make it out before it plunges back into the water until only its sails are seen.

The power surges back on, flickering softly before plunging back into darkness. Azula backs away from the window and tries to put it out of her mind. Though images of Sokka’s smile play back in her mind as she heaves furniture. Interspersed between them are flashes of his face, but waterlogged by the ocean, barnacles and kelps clinging to it while fish work between eye sockets.

Azula doubles her attention on securing the lighthouse. 

For their efforts they have a sofa, a bookshelf, and a small table to hold the door shut as the hurricane batters the tabby walls of the lighthouse. Feeling entirely drained, Azula drops herself onto the remaining available sofa. Zuko is close behind. They sit in silence listening to the ruthless onslaught of rain and the roaring crash of the waves against the cliffside. 

She finds herself grateful that their lighthouse is perched upon a cliff high enough that the water can't reach them. Still, in the back of her mind, she fears that a particularly powerful strand of lighting may blast their seemingly sturdy perch into the restless tides below. She doesn’t know much about the tides, but she does know that they won’t hesitate to bash her bloody against the rocks as they tear her apart. 

She thinks of the ship, overtaken and at their mercy. She clutches the sunstone starfish pendant that hangs upon her neck. She hasn’t taken it off since he’d given it to her. 

“I doesn’t look like there’s too much damage.” Azula notes. The lighthouse is designed to withstand. The townsfolk are quite fond of reminding everyone that, “when the ocean takes the town, Sea Candle Lighthouse will remain.”

She supposes that she should be glad that her home is allegedly secure. 

“Yeah, we can worry about the flooding after the storm.” Zuko agrees. 

She lays her head back and observes the spiraling staircase that lead to the uppermost part of the lighthouse. Sometimes she and Zuzu grab sleeping bags and sleep there were they can stare at the stars and the ocean. Tonight they will remain on the couch, content to ignore the storm as much as they can. Though night won’t fall for another six hours at least. 

“Is your head okay?” Zuko asks.

Azula touches the knot on her head. “Yeah, I think so. Your’s?”

“I didn’t hit my head. But my elbows are bruised.”

She lights up a few candles and thinks of the stormy days when their mother had read them stories. Those days had been so brief. 

“I hope father is enjoying his drinks.” Zuko scowls. 

She understands his resentment and hatred. But Azula can’t bring herself to share it; frankly she feels pity for the man. Perhaps even empathy--Sokka was supposed to have returned months ago. He has been declared dead by law. 

Lost at sea. 

She doesn’t believe it, not quite. They haven’t searched long enough to say so, they haven’t found wreckage. 

But people at school look at her the same way the fishermen and dock workers looked at Ozai after Ursa’s death. 

“Let’s talk about something else, Zuzu.”


	3. The Fish Game

_ Sokka always liked fish, particularly boop boops because of their silly name. He also liked blue marlin. _

_ She likes stingrays--especially bluespotted ribbon tail--the most but they call her starfish.  _

_ She has come to associate her friends with marine life, a habit that formed at childhood. One that she and Zuko have never outgrown. At one point they had addressed each other by the names of sea animals. _

_ Zuko got the name stingray after an incident where he’d jammed a fork into an outlet when Ozai wasn’t watching. It scarred his face and their father was under fire, for the first time, for child neglect.  _

_ Sokka was a clownfish because he was the comedian in the group and he had been until his departure. Sailfish has been bestowed upon Katara after dolphin had been taken from her and given to Ursa. Mother was gentle and docile like a dolphin. Katara is too but she is also a fast swimmer. She can swim further out into the ocean than any of them and sailfish are known for their speed. TyLee is also loving and sweet but as kids they had run out of gentle animals to compare her to so they chose the pretty betta fish because TyLee has always been pretty. Eventually they learned about cuttlefish and that became her nickname; it sounds close enough to cuddle for them.  _

_ Aang is an obvious angelfish. _

_ Where Katara, Ursa, Tylee, and Aang are kind and caring, Toph is a shark. She’s fun and dangerous and with a razor sharp tongue. She is among Chan, Jet and Roun-Jian who have been nicknamed Hammerhead, Sand, and Thresher respectively. The name Mackerel was afforded to Toph despite her being the smallest of them.  _

_ Mai is the piranha mostly because she had been afraid of them at one point and they like to joke that Tom-Tom is a barancel because he clings to Mai like one. Iroh is a serene turtle and Suki is lucky koi. _

_ Ozai is and will always be a crab because is general outlook on life is grumpy. Zhao, the weathered fisherman is a slick and shady eel and their old history teacher Long-Feng is an angler fish; it looks welcoming on the surface but is ugly within. And the bartender is a prickly urchin. They steer clear of he and his wife June, who they have called the Kraken.  _

_ It was a fun game and to this day she has a tendency, even if it is out of habit, to try to decide which sea animal a newcomer is.  _

**.oOo.**

Azula wakes up on the sofa. It is still raining, fat droplets plop upon the lighthouse. There are less of them but it is still a steady stream. She senses that the worst of it has come to pass and it is probably safe to go outside if she doesn’t mind getting wet. In fact, most people do go out. They emerge skeptically from their homes, reluctant to assess the damage, but eager to just get it over with. It is routine in their little harbor town. 

The people of Port Tui-La are slowly awakening, Azula watches them trickle outside of their homes to inspect them. Many of them, the ones who live more inland, skip this and prioritize checking on their shops or their boats. Though boats are almost always a lost cause, hence why Ozai keeps theirs in a boat house. The news of three summers ago was when recreational fisher, Pathik boldly declared that he had found his janky wooden ship fully intact in a rocky alcove while the Cod Man bellowed, “my fishing ship!” to the fleeing grey clouds. 

She watches the Cod seller’s car whip down the road, he is always the first to arrive at the docks. Azula rolls her eyes, she can already hear him crying out. 

“He must have great insurance.” Zuko grumbles as he groggily wipes his eyes. “I hope he does.”

“Maybe he won’t need it this time?” Azula stretches her arms. 

“Ha!” Zuko bursts. “I bet he’ll be La-bsters, crying about it within the hour.” 

“If La-bsters is still standing.” Azula says dismally. “This storm was pretty bad.” Her heart sinks for Hakoda and Katara. They have already lost Sokka, if they’ve lost their restaurant too… “We’ll walk over there.” 

“Shouldn’t we check on the lighthouse first?”

Azula shakes her head. “It was built to withstand storms.”

“I can get the car started.”

She shakes her head. “Too many debris in the road, it’ll be quicker on foot.” 

“We’re going to have to clean this first.” He gestures to the blockage at the door.

Azula rubs the back of her head and grumbles to herself as she begins heaving the furniture back into its place. To the best of their memory, everything is back in order about twenty minutes later. By now the rain is beginning to taper off, but she speculates that it will come back in furious bursts and random intervals.

She shuffles around for two umbrellas and shoves one into Zuko’s arms. 

She pops her umbrella as she steps beneath a grey washed sky. Small rays of light break through the clouds, but do little to lift the gloom. The destruction is abundantly apparent as the siblings make their way down the path that leads from the lighthouse to the boardwalk. It isn’t a very long walk but they can see the damage inflicted upon the houses of their nearest neighbors. 

The worst of them has a collapsed roof and another has flood damage to the ocean facing wall. Even from this distance she can tell that the boardwalk has been hit hard. After many decades of standing proud and secure, a particularly powerful wave, or mayhaps, a bolt of lightning has collapsed one of the corner pillars. It is splintered down the middle and juts from the lapping water like a broken tree trunk. All around it float planks of wood, chairs, stools, and other buoyant knick knacks. Several of the tourist shops, the ones nearest to the collapsed scaffolding are gone.

Gone in the sense that they are unusable and irreparable. She can see their dilapidated corpses, laying helplessly in the ocean, waiting for the ocean to finish the job. Their rubble will pollute the beaches for days. Likely, the beaches will be closed to the public until the damage can be cleared. 

Azula’s favorite jewelry shop, Mai’s family’s jewelry shop, is amid the wreckage and she silently curses to herself, wishing that it could have been that damned pub instead, maybe then her father would be rushing down the street to make sure that she and Zuzu are alright. 

It very nearly brings tears of frustration to her eyes. She clenches her fist in her pocket and steps over a broken palm tree, its coconuts roll down the incline of the street. 

From what she can see, the La-bster still stands. Though she can’t foresee it opening any time soon. Much like the beaches, it will remain closed until the boardwalk can be repaired and safety secured. Even if the boardwalk were deemed safe enough, the rubble is an eyesore. 

The restaurant may stand but they are still going to take a financial hit, losing that much business at the height of tourist season. 

Hakoda and Katara are already there when she and Zuko arrive. 

“Zuko, Azula!” She throws her arms around both of them at once. When she pulls back, Azula can tell that she has been crying. Her eyes are red and there are tear tracks on her cheeks. Azula doesn’t need to ask her what is wrong but Zuko does anyhow.

“We can’t reopen like this.” She confirms what Azula has speculated. “Waitressing at La-bsters is the only thing that’s kept my mind off of…” She trails off. “Even when the restaurant is super busy I’ll think of him. About how he’d always take the difficult customers from me. Or that one time he threatened to throw a man into the harbor for me.” She wipes at her eyes. 

Azula laughs, that sounds like Sokka for sure.

“Need help with cleanup?” Zuko offers. 

“That would be wonderful, thanks.” 

Azula frowns, she must admit that she hadn’t planned on spending her morning moving heavy planks of wood and fixing outdoor decor. She looks around, there is plenty of that to be cleaned; strings of patio lights are either gone, have cracked bulbs, or are tangled and knotted around palm fronts and rafters in unflattering ways. Outdoor chairs and tables are overturned. Some of them are in neighboring properties and the La-bsters have a few chairs from the Cod Merchant’s Cod Shack. The floor is a mess of glass and broken plastic and Azula has no idea where to begin this task. She has no will power to do it either. Evidently she had just come by to make sure that the place was still standing and that her childhood friend is okay.

Task done.

She retracts that statement. “I’m going to see if I can reach Mai, I don’t think that she knows about…” she jerks a thumb in the direction of the destruction.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Zuko says, “I’ll help Katara, you’re better at breaking bad news anyhow.”

She squints at the wreckage once more, a little ways down the beach, TyLee’s family’s boat rental place still stands. It only does because they have learned from the last time; instead of a small wooden shack on the beach they have built it into the side of a nearby cliff. Their most expensive rentals are tucked away into a garage, also built into the cliffside. But there is some damage to their cheaper rental boats and many of their canoes and inflatables are scattered upon the beach. 

Azula picks up her phone and dials Mai’s number, hoping to get a signal.

**.oOo.**

Katara fixes her eyes on the ocean. She hates it more than anything as it keeps stealing the things that make her feel loved and secure. She loves it more than anything because it makes her feel free and empowered. Such is the duality of the ocean. 

Currently she hates it more than anything in the world. 

Currently it has reminded her of the last thing it took.

Mai’s jewelry shop is like Sokka, dismantled and being pulled further and further into the water.

She shakes herself, she doesn’t know that he is dismantled. 

Yet the hole in her heart is the same it has been several months and it still stings. There is such a vacancy in Sokka’s absence. Anything and everything is at risk of triggering a pang of sorrow; a specific dock post that he used to sit on regularly (she can still see the marks where he’d tagged it), a cluster of shells on a table, certain movies and books. Song are especially provocative; he had always loved reggae. They listened to it together all the time and he had a reggae song for everything, rendering the genre impossible to listen to without crying. There are so, so many songs that she can’t listen to and it is hard to explain why she gets teary eyed when they play on the radio.

Every now and again a customer will walk in who has his hair styled like Sokka had or wearing the same shirt that he had. On one instance, a girl walked in wearing Sokka’s favorite shirt, the one that he’d worn when he went out to sea before he’d disappeared. 

She no longer enjoys recreational sailing, and gets tense when anyone mentions that they are going to take a solo recreational trip. 

Azula insists that Sokka is still alive but Katara knows in her heart that he isn’t. She senses it in the same way she’d sensed that he’d had an accident while jet skiing with Jet and Chan. The same way he sensed that she’d gotten hurt while surfing. 

She knows that he is gone because she can no longer feel him but she lets Azula talk about how she is sure that he is alive. Azula is rarely an optimist and Katara doesn’t have the heart to crush that.

Azula is the only other person who still seems truly impacted by his disappearance. She also tends to turn the radio off when certain songs play, though not as many as Katara. It isn’t for lack of memories with the songs either, it is more that she only turns the music off for songs that have particularly fond memories. Katara noticed that the other girl will grow randomly distant or somber. And Azula still thinks that he is alive. She can’t imagine how Azula will take it when that denial is shattered.

All the same, Katara tries to think of the absolute joy she would feel at being proven wrong.

Not that she thinks this will be the case. Azula has lost her mother already, her father might as well be dead...losing Sokka had done her psyche so much damage. 

Damage that her father didn’t bother to tend to. 

Damage that Zuko could only do his best to mend. 

Damage that had almost killed her too.

And it is no wonder, they had been so close. Of course they were, Katara had caught him kissing her on more than one occasion. It always left her feeling flustered. Especially the night that she’d come across Sokka heavily and deeply lip locked with Azula. She still gags and the sucking sound. And yet, she’d give anything to overhear it again if it meant that Sokka was back. 

They had softer moments. Moments where Katara had found them curled up beneath a palm tree, Azula cuddled in Sokka’s arms. They half-sat, half-laid in the glow of the fairy lights that curled around the tree. They nestled in a burrow of a brightly colored bean bag chair. They’d invited Katara to join them as they watched a movie being played on a projector screen across the beach. 

Katara can no longer attend those movies. There are a lot of things she can no longer do. Things that Azula still does that she wouldn't have done if Sokka hadn't been a part of the picture. From the window of the family restaurant, Katara sees the other girl, more often than not, wandering alone on the beach. It is usually around sunset. Usually by the cove. It is something she hadn't done before Sokka's passing, but every day since. She can never bring herself to ask. 

She feels a hand on her shoulder, “you good?” Zuko asks.

“Yeah.” She nods. “I’m just thinking again.” She looks towards the horizon. She can’t see the sunrise, not that it will bring her any comfort today. In fact, a pretty sunrise would only be mockery. 

Just like it had been on the day Sokka was declared dead. 

The sky had been so vivid that day, all manners of orange and gold and the clouds seemed to be tinged a deep purple. Really it was the most beautiful sunset that she had ever seen. 

And when night finally fell, the animals had been more lively than ever. Under a starlit sky, she’d never seen so many turtles migrating from sand to sea. Never seen so many crabs scuttling across the rocks. So many fish in the waves and starfish in the tide pools.

Tide pools that reflected a sky that looked as though it were painted with pearl powder. 

“Sokka laid those out for us.” Kya had remarked, dabbing at her wet eyes. “My baby boy, made this for us to see.” 

The sky had been all sorts of mystifying that night.

And yet she could not enjoy it. 

Not at all. 

The sky...the world had no right to be so beautiful when her brother was dead. 

She recalls at once, their old fish game. She wonders if that’s what the afterlife is like; one big ocean where loved ones go. Spectral fish in a perpetually fluorescent sea. She likes to think that Sokka is a clownfish in this phantasmal sea. That one day she will be a sailfish swimming next to him, finally the big sister and not the little one.

Zuko puts an arm over her shoulder.

She gestures to an overturned table. “Can you help me pick this up?”


	4. The Cliffs That Day

_ It was sunset they found their favorite place on the docks. The sun reflected itself upon the slowly undulating waves, a vivid golden disk bobbing upon a dancing surface. Sokka’s hand curled around hers, he flashed her a pretty smile. A soft and charming smile, outlined by the sun’s fading glow.  _

_ With his other hand, he pointed at a cluster of craggy rock formations, some large and others stout. “Ma used to tell Katara and I that the sirens sing on those.” He pointed at a natural arch of sandstone that was several feet away from it. “And that, that was a gateway into an underwater world. Or sometimes where ghost ships pass through to get to the otherside.” _

_ Azula nodded along as he recounted his folktales. She had never been much into them, preferring to look at what is real over a fantasy. But his voice was soothing and he was so enthusiastic to be sharing so she let him go on.  _

_ “She said that sometimes lost sailors will come through those arches to let their loved ones know what happened.”  _

_ Azula didn’t know if she believed in ghosts. She stared at her feet as she kicked them at the water below.  _

_ “Don’t lose your sandals again!” Sokka exclaimed, recalling how she’d had him fish them out the last time she’d done it.  _

_ She offered only a mischievous smile. She decided to show him mercy, instead of deliberately letting them slip off again, she replies, “tell me about the sirens.” _

_ “Of course you want to hear about the sirens.” He grumbled. “You are a siren.” _

_ “Oh?” _

_ “According to Ma, they’re really beautiful...alluring and their voices are even lovelier.” _

_ Azula nodded, “I am beautiful and alluring, yes.” She agreed.  _

_ “They like to sing in the middle of the ocean, their voices are hypnotic. They put a spell on people. On the foggiest days, usually when sailors are lost, they’ll hear voices in the mist. Enchanting and beautiful music. That’s how ma described it, enchanting. And the sailors would be so drawn to it that they’d throw themselves overboard and drown. Ma never clarified whether the sirens drowned them or if they just could get back on their ships after jumping.” _

_ “What do you think happened?” She asked before the full meaning of his ‘compliment’ sunk in. “I don’t lure men to their deaths!” _

_ He quirked a brow. She had half the mind to chuck him off of the dock, but that would have only proved his point. Anyways, he’d put his arm around her. _

_ She watched as something rose up from the water, and for a second, stories of fantasy and oddity fresh in her mind, she could have sworn that it was a siren’s tail. She craned her neck for a closer look. _

_ “Sokka…” She pointed. _

_ The dolphins usually never got that close.  _

**.oOo.**

Azula was at La-bsters when the news came. Zuko had a fish sandwich and a plate of fries. She remembers just picking a few fries off of his plate and occasionally taking sips of her icedtea.

She was overlooking the shoreline, the midday crowd of tourists lined the beaches. She was still smiling, because Sokka would be entering soon with a collection of stories from his days at sea. 

Katara had been similarly excited…

Azula clicks her phone and puts it aside, assessing in full just how extensive the damage to the pier is. Mai seems to have taken the news well, but then Mai is never particularly expressive and she knows that Michi will be bawling. She wanders over to the Cod Shack and picks up one of the out of place blue and white chairs. Though it is hard to tell which table it belongs to, they are all so scattered. 

Scattered like her feelings.

She doesn’t want to think about that now. 

The sails resurface in her mind and she isn’t sure if they had truly been there. It may be that she is slipping again. 

She shakes her head and begins moving all of the chairs and tables into the center of the outdoor dining area. Once that is accomplished, she begins reassembling them as they had been to the best of her memory. 

She is lightly panting by the time she is done heaving heavy chairs and tables around. She feels an arm on her shoulder, it is too large to be Zuko’s. Hakoda pats her shoulder and flashes her a warm smile that looks too much like Sokka’s for it not to put a pang in her heart. “Thanks for doin’ this.” He says. “I’m sure that you and your brother have your own mess to deal with.” 

Azula shrugs. “Taken care of. We just need to get a new door for the lighthouse when we can get the money.” 

“The two of you have always been very helpful. If you need a new door, I can get you a new door.” He looks his restaurant over. “We made more than enough last year, I was gonna put it aside for renovations but I don’t mind helping you two fix your door.” Before she can decline the offer, he continues, “I’m gonna have to put those off anyways to keep us afloat this season. So, no big loss.” 

But she feels as though it is. “I’d rather work for what I have.”

Hakoda chuckles. “You and your father…” he trails off. “Neither of you two like charity.” He sighs, “If you must, think about it as payment for helping with this mess.” He gestures to the havoc around him. 

She sighs, “alright, fine.” 

He pats her back. “At least you aren’t as stubborn as he is. Would you mind helping me untangle these.” He points to the knots of patio lights. 

Azula nods. “I can probably climb up there.” She tests her weight upon the arbor, finding that it can accommodate her, she scales it. She reaches the top and finds herself a comfortable position. She supposes that having such a short and light build has its perks. 

“Careful!” Hakoda calls up, drawing the attention of Zuko and Katara.

“Azula, get down from there!” He shouts. 

“I’m fine, Zuzu.” She insists as she works to unravel the first strand of lights. “Besides, if I fall, it won’t be any worse than a broken ankle…”

“A broken ankle isn’t a good thing.” 

“She’ll be fine, Zuko.” Katara says. “Look at her, she’s more balanced than those seagulls that always squat here.”

The anxiousness doesn’t leave his face. She supposes that she can understand why. It is the same reason that he had been so panicky just the other night. 

She remembers the feeling of saltwater wind on her face…

She remembers it just as vividly as she remembers how it felt leaving La-bsters with no appearance from Sokka. Katara had promised to call her when Sokka got home. As she’d walked out she’d heard Hakoda mention to Kya that Sokka was just running a little late. 

And that had to be it because the weather was pristine. 

But Katara never called that night. She never called at all to inform Azula that Sokka was home, because he never came home. The first few days were fine, there was still a decent chance that he was simply running late and on his way. A week from his set arrival date, they sent the search parties out. 

It was on the news, a segment about a lone lost sailor. That if anyone spied a long sailboat, with a dark blue and white body and sails painted to look like ocean waves, that they should report it. That the boat’s name is  _ Pearl Racer _ and the sailor’s name is Sokka. This was followed by an image of him, the one on his boating licence, and a verbal description, age, weight, height. 

The search continued for another two weeks.

By the third it was called off. Azula isn’t sure who was the most furious; she, Kya, Katara, or Hakoda. None of them thought that the coastguards had done everything they could. None of them thought that the search had been long enough. 

After a little over a month had gone by, he was pronounced legally dead. 

She remembers a numb hollowness. 

The string of lights come free and fall back into their correct places. Azula triumphantly declares as much as she carefully makes her way to the next set and the set after that. 

“Please come down.” Zuko winces as she nears the middle of the large arbor. 

Azula rolls her eyes as she drops the final strand and climbs down. But really she can’t fault him too much. In part, she’d done this to herself. The wind on her face isn’t all that similar to the wind that had caressed it  _ that  _ day.

The day she’d wandered to the cliffside.

The numb, hollowness hadn’t abated. In the weeks to follow, if anything it had grown. More and more intense. She may not have been as close to her mother as Zuko was, but the woman had been very loving. To lose her was a hard hit. To lose her had been, in some way, losing her father; he no longer smiled. No longer walked down to the back with her to show her new surfing tricks nor attended her surf competitions. No longer had barbeques with them on the beach. 

No longer did anything but drink and drink until his words slurred and his temper flared. He wasn’t the same man. He was meaner, more distant. But at that point, distance was safer. 

She had lost her mother and her father. And just a few years later, she lost Sokka. The thoughts had carried her out of the lighthouse and to the edge of the cliff that she and Ursa used to sit on and watch the sunset. The churning and relentless waves below called to her long a beautiful liquid song.

She remembered thinking about how Zuko had already lost mother and father. But he still had Katara. Or maybe she hadn’t thought about Zuko at all. Now that she really thinks about it, she is almost certain that she hadn’t. If she had thought about Zuko then she wouldn’t have put her feet over the edge. 

She wouldn’t have woken up in the hospital. 

She wouldn’t have a large gash that runs all the way down her arm and another scar beneath her chin. 

She remembers her father saying that she had been born lucky. After that she is inclined to agree. 

She should be as dead as her mother. 

Azula wanders over to Zuko who is still jittery and rolls her eyes again. “It wasn’t that high.” She almost tells him that if she could survive a cliff dive into ruthless waters, that she could handle a teeny leap from an arbor. She thinks that this will only put him more on edge. He doesn’t like talking about that day. 

That day when he almost lost his whole family.

Well...he could have gone to stay with uncle Iroh who lived on the other coast…

“I don’t want to have to pay your hospital bills when you break your arm.” He spits, trying to play it off, but she can sense the unease in his voice. 

“I’m fine, Zuzu. I can handle myself. I know what I can and can’t do.”

“Yeah but accidents happen” he trails off. She knows what he wants to say, “look at mom. Look at Sokka.” 

“Well it didn’t.” She shrugs. “Let’s go eat some seafood.” She thumbs at the restaurant behind them. “You can take two customers before you close for the season, right?”

“How about you drive home with us and I can have Kya cook up one of her special lunches?”

“Mom misses seeing you guys.” Katara adds. 

It sounds like as good a plan as any. 


	5. Phosphorescence

Azula wanders along the beach, a lone figure under the moonlight. The waves crash against the sand and she listens to their rumble as they eat away at the shore. In the distance, as far back on the horizon as they can be, Azula sees storm clouds. It would seem that nature isn’t quite through with Port Tui-La yet. If they are lucky, the clouds will drift in the other direction. For the time being, they flash and flicker a safe distance away. 

Between the clouds she can see a light dusting of stars. She wanders her way out to the collection of rocks near the sandstone arch and perches herself upon them. The tide has receded far enough back that she could wander for miles only ankle deep in water. 

Sokka would have loved this. She fixes her eyes on the arch as though she could will his tall tales into truth. She wishes that his ship would sail on by on its way to the other side to offer her at least a parting word or two. She had never been one to engage in fantasy but sitting under the arch and waiting makes her feel like she is doing something. 

The illusion of usefulness is better than acknowledge that she can do nothing at all…

Her train of thought wanders; she can do something though. She can find herself a ship of her own and search for him herself. She knows that he had been heading east, to a nearby island so that he could learn about a new culture. 

She could go east herself. 

Maybe she will find him on the island engaging in a folk dance or, more likely, enjoying a traditional dish. Maybe he had just been so immersed in a new world that he’d forgotten that he had an old one to get back to. 

She has toyed with the idea over and over in her mind. But she doesn’t want to leave Zuzu alone. He has Katara, but that isn’t quite the same. And she has already promised that she would join Toph and Aang for roller skating and icecream on the pier. She looks at said pier and wonders if that is still possible. Even if it isn’t, Chan and Ruon anticipate her surfing with them on the weekend. 

She stares at the arch, nearly unmovingly. The moon throws its shadow over her. She knows that she ought to go home, that there’s no sense in waiting here. He isn’t coming home. 

Azula swallows and her lower lip quivers as she acknowledges what everyone else has accepted weeks ago. It isn’t like her to cling to baseless hopes, she isn’t sure why she had tried. She has only hindered herself. Aang, Toph, Suki, Zuko...they have all moved on. Or at the very least have healed enough to function right again. Even Katara, Hakoda, and Kya have made peace with it.

That leaves her.

Alone.

Still lingering and dwelling.

She slides down the rock and buries her face in her knees. Nevermind that the water is soaking uncomfortably through her shorts.  _ He isn’t coming back, he isn’t coming back, he isn’t _ ...she repeats it to herself until she goes numb to it.

She hears footsteps on the sand and has only enough time to somewhat compose herself. She takes a deep breath but doesn’t turn her head. “Go away, Zuzu.” 

“Come back to the house.” 

Azula tenses at the voice and awaits a lecture about crying. She brushes the back of her hand over her cheek and it comes away mercifully dry. 

“It’s going to storm again.”

She wants to ask him why he cares now. Where he was when they needed him last night. But she isn’t sure what kind of mood he is in, he is not close enough for her to smell the booze is on him. His words aren’t slurred but he hasn’t spoken enough for it to be as obvious. 

“Your brother asked me to come check on you.”

“Why didn’t he do it himself?” God, she wishes that he would have. 

“He said that you get angry when he does.”

_ So he sent you, _ never leaves her tongue.  _ That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t try, _ is another option. “I like it out here.” Is what she settles for. The wind pulls her hair and pushes the tang of salt and fish into her nose. Plankton swirl around her feet, glowing a dim blue. 

Ozai reaches down and scoops up a handful of them. “You and your mother used to make pictures with these. Right there on the sand, you would spread them out on the sand and call it art.” He pauses. “I suppose it was art.”

Azula swallow again. This is the first time she has seen him sober in a long time. This time she is too late to catch herself, “the bar closed?” His arm reaches out and she flinches. But his hand only comes to rest on her shoulder. 

“It’s open.” He mutters. 

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Khozen told me to get my ass home.” He shrugs. “Made me help him secure the bar first.” 

She hears the first rumble of thunder. She supposes that it doesn’t matter, the last storm has already devastated their little town, what is one more. She savors the lightning and its startling, electric thrill. Despite the destruction it brings her a sense of soothing to watch it rage and crackle overhead. Its brilliance reflected in the water in front of her. 

“You always did like the lightning.” Ozai chuckles as he rubs his thumb on her shoulder.

“It’s soothing.” She replies quietly. 

“There are safer places to watch a storm.”

“And there are more beautiful and thrilling places.” She replies. “Like this one.”

“A few more minutes.” He says firmly. This time she doesn’t go tense, she has long since learned to gauge the weather of his moods and tones. She hears more worry in his voice than she does domineering. 

She makes room for him on the rock.

He sits next to her and watches the clouds roll in.

He doesn’t ask her about Sokka. Doesn’t ask her what is wrong. She thinks that he already knows. 

His hand doesn’t leave her shoulder. 

She doesn’t hear Zuko approach until he is right behind her. Silently he sits on the other side of their father. For once he doesn’t shake father’s hand off of his shoulder. A particularly brilliant flash of lightning illuminates the beach. The plankton swirl and churn up a phosphorescent mist. Fingers of light, like lightning from the sea.

  
  


It has been a long time since they’d all sat on the beach together.


	6. A Record High

_ Sokka used to chase gulls with her. _

_ That was how they met. On a bright sunny afternoon. One where the sun blazed hotter than it had all summer. Where there were only a few extraordinarily puffy and perfectly white clouds in the sky. The forecaster had announced record high temperatures that afternoon and Ursa had been yelling, from atop the cliff, at her to get inside before she got charred.  _

_ Azula decided that day that she was a sea dragon and had boldly declared as much and that, “dragons don’t get hot!” _

_ Ursa had stormed off the patio at a brisk pace, only to be caught by Ozai. He’d muttered something to her that was probably akin to, “let her have her fun, I’ll watch her.” Because Ursa had disappeared back into the lighthouse--presumably by Zuko--and Ozai made his way down to the beach. _

_ She caught sight of Sokka and his family before Ozai had made it to the sand. Hakoda held his hand and Kya held Katara’s. They’d expected her to take a shining to Katara first, but she’d marched right up to Sokka and declared that his shark print swim trunks were cool, but that her dragon swimsuit was better.  _

_ For a while she, Sokka, and Katara batted at a mound of sand with brightly colored plastic shovels. Katara insisted that these little mounds were sandcastles. Azula’s had more shape to them, but they kept collapsing every time Sokka carelessly chucked sand at them. She couldn’t hit him with her eclectic blue shovel until his parents weren’t looking. And when she’d finally gotten the opportunity, he hit her back! Zuzu never hit her back. The look on his face when she’d whined that he hit her was priceless. And for nearly an hour she played exclusively with Katara.  _

_ And then they’d spotted the seagull. She hadn’t paid it much mind, none at all, actually. She had a rather decent sandcastle in the makings now that Sokka was in time out. But the seagull made itself known by landing upon her hard work and collapsing it. She screeched in aggravation and she thinks that her father might have had to stifle a chuckle. Hakoda, next to him, surely did.  _

_ In an attempt to get himself out of trouble he chucked his dark blue shovel at the gull. It squealed and shambled off. “I bet that you can’t catch it!” Azula proclaimed loudly.  _

_ “I can so!” Sokka insisted.  _

_ “If you do I’ll buy you a boat!” In essence it was a promise to steal her daddy’s credit card and somehow make her way to the boat shop across the way. Not that Sokka, only eight, could do anything with a boat. And not that she, only seven, could legally purchase one.  _

_ That logic passed the both of them by and he chased the gulls for days, sacrificing countless hamburger buns for the sake of that quest. _

_ He never did catch that seagull. _

**.oOo.**

She knows that she ought to go home, that there’s no sense in staying, especially not now that the tide has risen again and she can’t make her way out to the rock cluster. Instead, Azula sits on the shore with her head resting on knees that are drawn up to her chest, toes buried in the sand. The sun beams down upon her, scorching her skin. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing particularly does.

She knows, just as much as she is aware that there is no point to watching the arch, that she shouldn’t hinge her entire life on one boy.

One kind, humorous, and loving boy.

But then, this is no breakup. It isn’t a matter of moving away or growing apart. There is no chance of getting him back. So maybe it is justifiable and understandable to give in and render herself useless over one boy. One kind, humorous, and loving boy.

She feels numb. Numb to the sun on her skin that would normally breath life into her. Numb to the ocean lapping at her calves that would normally soothe her. Numb to the kind ocean breeze and numb to the greetings of the old sailors and their good natured inquiries about how she is holding up.

She answers that she is fine.

She is not fine.

Ozai has returned to the bar with a promise to come back by noon. The promise is well intended but empty no less. A few drinks from now and he will have forgotten that he’s made it at all.

It is Katara that finds her. She isn’t surprised, the girl has probably seen her from the deck of La-bsters. In the same way that Azula goes to the arch, Katara likes to sit on that deck and read or stare at the ocean and the seagulls as they zip by.

She watches Katara pad down the beach, hears the crunch of the sand beneath her feet as she kicks up small clouds of it. “Zuko told me about last night.”

Azula scoffs. “Of course he did. Zuko should stop sharing other people’s business.” She doesn’t mean to be snappish and confrontational.

Katara gives a sad half smile. Azula supposed that Katara is used to her moods, she is prone to cold and biting remarks when grief settles in. The girl drops beside her and hands her a mango-pineapple smoothie, her favorite. Long since going enviro-friendly, it is served in a hollowed pineapple. “On the house.” Katara smiles. Azula takes a sip, a pleasing fruity tang bursts on her tongue like a mouthful of sunrise. “I made it myself.” She adds.

“No wonder it tastes so horrible.”

Katara gives her bicep a firm nudge. “At least Toph didn’t make it, you remember Toph’s smoothie, right?”

Azula nods and gives her eyes a roll. “The Mustard Mango Mishap, who cold forget.” They’d let Toph truly her cooking skills and she’d very confidently pushed the mustard dispenser instead of strawberry and then several other smoothie flavors before handing it off to Azula.

It tasted lovely; pineapple, peach, and mango. But instead of strawberry or even wild berry, Azula tasted mustard. She gagged and sputtered, “i-is that mu-mustard!?”

“Whoops.” Was the only answer she’d received.

Azula sips her smoothie, the beverage icy against her palms. She adjusts her sunglasses and peers into it. “He’s dead.” She remarks bluntly. 

Katara cringes. By now, she is used to Azula’s straightforward speech. She is used to it enough to take no offense, to know that she means no harm. But it doesn’t take away the sting of hearing the word ‘dead’.

“I know that he meant a lot to you too.” She says quietly. 

Azula grips the pineapple tighter and lightly gnaws on her lower cheek. “I loved him.” She doesn’t think that she had told him enough. In fact, she is almost certain that she had only been able to do it once. When she, face red like a sunburn, asked him if he’d like a date with her. She recalls playful teasing, mostly central to her fluster, before he had agreed. 

“So did I.” Katara says. “So  _ do _ I.”

“Sometimes I want to go out and search for him myself.” Azula confesses. “That way I could say that I did everything I could.” 

Katara nods. “Yeah, I sometimes think of the same thing. But then I remember that I don’t have a boat.”

“I do.” Azula replies. “Father is never home, he’d be too drunk to miss it.”

“Azula…? You’re serious?”

Azula rifles through her beach bag and pulls out a journal and several books on navigation, boat maintenance, and general sailing tips. She opens the journal and shows Katara a few pages of notes. “I’ve been studying them for months.” She pauses. “Before he went missing. He was always so enthusiastic about sailing and I enjoy learning new things. I figured that I could do my research and we’d go on a trip together one day…” 

She sees Katara’s eyes tear up and her lip tremble. “He would have liked that a lot.”

Azula nods. She turns back to the horizon, watching the place where the clouds swoop down to touch the ocean. “I could get Zuko and we can all go together. I can bring Mai and TyLee, maybe…” She wasn’t holding her breath on that. Despite owning a boat rental, TyLee is horribly afraid of the ocean and is prone to seasickness. And Mai’s mother, kind as she is, is all too overbearing to let her go out to sea. “Your father can come along. And your mother.”

“One of them would have to stay behind to work on repairs to our restaurant. I can’t just leave either of them alone.”

Azula understands. It might just be she and Zuko.

Or she alone. 

“Think about it?” Azula requests, picking up a shell and turning it over in her hand. 

Katara is silent for a good while before replying, “sure, Azula. I’ll think about it.” 

Azula fidgets with the shell. 

“Really, I will.”

Azula nods. 


	7. Off To The Deep End

_ Watching them play was alway an experience. Play usually included Azula swatting Zuko with a pool noodle and then he slapping her back until the lifeguard called for them to stop and he and Ursa had to pry them apart. It was mostly innocent, play fighting turned into an actual fight. But two ice cream cones later, they would usually get along again. _

_ Azula liked strawberry ice cream with chocolate syrup and nuts. Zuko always went for the chocolate-vanilla swirl, topped with extra sprinkles. Ursa liked hers plain vanilla and he enjoyed rocky road. Secretly he liked getting cookies and cream, but that was a solo purchase for after a hard day of running the lighthouse.  _

_ He remembers one particular day at the pool, slightly overcast, but no thunder nor bursts of lightning, so the facility was still open. They had gone as a family and picked out a set of lawn chairs. It wasn’t crowded so they had a wide selection. Azula had tossed towel down, a small navy thing with a large, smiling, electric blue baby dragon. At the time, his daughter refused to use anything that wasn’t some shade of blue; not bowls, not cups, she wouldn’t even eat popsicles that weren’t ‘blue flavored’.  _

_ She’d tossed the towel aside and her pool toys and jumped right in, before Ursa could cover her with sunscreen.  _

_ Zuko, set his towel, green with several bright orange and purple dinosaurs, on his lawn chair alongside a toy boat, a plastic alligator, and a torpedo he had managed to sneak away from Azula.  _

_ But he didn’t go for the pool, he lingered around and waited for Ursa to help him apply sunscreen to his back.  _

_ Ozai took off his sunglasses and spread his own towel out. He hadn’t put his back to the chair when it happened.  _

_ It was so quiet.  _

_ So silent that neither he nor Ursa had realized that it had happened until Azula’s small body was being lifted out of the pool. She gasped and coughed, golden eyes wide. Wide and tearful. An ambulance was called.  _

_ Not ten minutes later, he caught her scrambling for the pool to join Zuko in the water. Ursa scooped her out of the water promptly and declared that, “you will be wearing a life jacket until you learn to swim, young lady.”  _

_ This was met with a pout and a foot stomp.  _

_ He hadn’t planned on actually swimming that day but he found himself saying, “she doesn’t need one if I’m there. Right, Azula?” _

_ Azula had nodded eagerly.  _

_ She learned to swim that day.  _

_ And that day, she went off to the deep end on her own. _

**.oOo.**

The bar hadn’t taken too much damage, much to the disappointment of his children. It’s leaky roof is twice so, and there are more loose boards in the wall, but the place still stands. 

He still stands.

He looks up from his drink to the clock and curses. He had promised to meet Azula on the beach for lunch. It is well past noon. He rubs the bridge of his nose and groans to himself.

“Tipsy already, are yee?” Khozen asks.

“I told my daughter that I’d have lunch with her at noon.” 

Khozen follows his stare to the clock. “Maybe the lass is still waitin’ for ye.” 

Ozai shakes his head. “She’s expects punctuality.” 

“Aye, jus’ like ‘er father then.” The former pirate shakes his head. “Nex’ time tell me, I’ll have the bounce throw yer ass out, if I hav’ta.”

He appreciates the offer, but it will do him no good now. “Thank you, Khozen.” He says anyways. “I’ll have another.” He gestures to the drink. 

“You’ll have yerself home ‘n sortin things out with the lass.” He jerks his thumb at the door. “Ye don’ wanna lose her, savvy?”

Ozai rubs his hands over his face. He is terribly deep in this habit. The mug is calling him, coaxing him with a fury. But he already lost his wife, he can’t lose his daughter too. He yearns to ask for just one more, God how weak he has become if he can’t even resist a mug of whisky. His jaw works and he almost makes his request. He is grateful for Khozen’s judging glare.

He stands and pushes his stool in. 

He feels a hearty slap on his bicep. “Good choice me heartie.” He offers two solid pats. 

Ozai grumbles to himself as he makes his way to the door. 

He knows Azula well but he drives by the beach anyhow, just in case. Maybe she’d found a friend, maybe she found something to keep her busy…

He sees only empty rolling sand and one straggler walking his dog, a small sheepdog with shaggy fur. He recognizes the kid, Zuko’s bald friend...what was his name again? His cheery laugh doesn’t mingle well with Ozai’s current mood. He almost envies the boy and his innocence, those are the eyes of someone who has seen no loss. 

He pulls up to the lighthouse, hoping that Azula would be happy that he’d come home, even if it was an hour or so later than he’d intended. 

There is a somber sort of heaviness in opening the door, one that is not unlike the atmosphere of a storm’s aftermath. Quiet and tense. Dismal and forlorn. He knows that the lighthouse is as vacant as the beach, but he searches it anyhow. To what purpose, he cannot say, he knows what he won’t find. 

He doesn’t know where the two of them have gone, but he supposes that he will wait for them until they get back, hopefully they will take well to coming home to him. 

He doesn’t have to fret over that.

He finds the note laying on the table, and it strikes him, for the first time, that Azula and Zuko’s clothing and most treasured possessions are also gone. 


	8. The Call Of The Sea

Azula is surprised to see Katara making her way down the beach. She draws near with a look of both concern and what might be anger. Azula hands her suitcase to Zuko who stores it away below deck. The boat is rather spacious, for a sailboat. She had made sure to pick out a vessel with a powerful motor and a sturdy build. 

Funding comes some from her savings and Zuko’s pooled together. The rest is on their father’s credit card. She will leave him to sort out that mess, just as he’d left them to manage the lighthouse and its funds. 

“Y-you’re really doing it?” She asks incredulously. 

“You’re surprised?” Azula replies with a question of her own. 

“I’m surprised that you managed to get yourself a boat only hours after our conversation…” she trails off, putting the pieces together in her head. “You’ve been planning this for a lot longer, haven’t you?”

“Since he was declared dead.” Azula confirms. “Are you coming or not?” 

Zuko returns from below deck and offers her a small smile. 

Katara looks between he and her family restaurant and then to Azula. “You know that I can’t leave my parents.” She presses her lips into a thin line. 

Azula nods, “then I suppose that I’ll see you when we get back. Who knows, maybe we’ll have Sokka with us.” She pauses. “At the very least, maybe we can bring home some answers.”

“Azula, Zuko, you guys can’t just…what about your father?” She quickly backtracks, realizing her mistake. “What about Mai and Tylee? How about Aang and Toph and Suki? Did you say that you were going surfing with Chan, Ruon, and Jet?”

“I’ll be able to surf with them when I get back home. I’m sure that they wouldn’t mind you filling in for me.”

She turns to Zuko. Azula is well aware that she knows that she has a better chance of appealing to him, he isn’t so stubborn as she. She gives him a silent plea with her eyes. “You don’t really think that this is a good idea do you?”

“I have navigation tools. I studied up on it. I studied survival guides and sailing manuals. Sokka taught me little tricks…” she trails off. “I can handle this.  _ We  _ can handle this,” she looks to Zuko. “Just like we’ve been taking care of the lighthouse.”

“Well maybe you shouldn’t have to.” Katara counters. 

“But we do. And we have to do this too, right Zuzu?”

Zuko glances between the two and bites his lips.

Azula’s own stomach sinks. She knows him well enough; now that the seed of doubt has been planted it is going to grow and flourish. “Fine.” She mutters. “I’ll do this by myself.” She does most things on her own anyhow. 

“Azula…” he trails off. “You can’t just go alone.”

“Then come with me.” She says, but he is already exiting the boat. “I’m not forcing you to come. But I  _ am  _ going.” She punctuates. “With or without you, I am going.” She tries not to sound angry. But she is. She is terribly frustrated. She wishes that Katara would take her overbearing motherly attitude elsewhere. Her own mother is dead and she isn’t looking for a replacement.

She knows that she has failed to hide her dissatisfaction because both Zuko and Katara wince. She almost does too, because she is aware that they know how she can get. She knows how she can get. And maybe they’re right, maybe she isn’t okay.

Maybe she’s desperate and hurt and looking for some way to alleviate that hurt.

“I can’t go with you, Azula. Katara is right, this...this is a bad idea.” 

An impulsive one. She is faintly aware. But is it really? Is it really an impulse if it has been itching at her mind for so long? “Sokka is just as old as you, Zuzu, and he went sailing.”

“And look what happened!” Zuko blurts out. He flinches as soon as the words leave his mouth but the damage has already been done. 

“And we’re going to fix it!” Azula snaps. “ _ I’m _ going to fix it.” Though she knows that she can fix nothing if she is only chasing a ghost. She remembers the sails in the storm, stark white against a darkened sky. It might be that her mind has slipped. Yet, it might have been a sign. A sign that he is either still out there and alive, or a sign that he is at the bottom of the ocean in desperate need to be found so that he can move into the next world. “I just thought that you’d care more.” She can no longer hold Zuko’s outburst against him, not when she makes one of her own, “he’s your brother, Katara, so why do I care more about him that you do.”

Seldom does she see rage on Katara’s face, but it is there and she can sense it just as she’d felt the lightning tingle on her skin. And when Katara is angry, Zuko usually supports her. They are going to get angry with her again...she clutches her head in her hands. “I need to go, I need to find him.”

At least if they are mad at her they will be less inclined to ask her to stay. Perhaps she should make them angry so that they won’t miss her, just in case she loses her way and finds herself as lost as Sokka. 

“We aren’t angry with you, Azula.” Katara finally speaks up. “We’re worried about you.”

Azula is glad that she has her back turned on them because a tear slips down her cheek before she can stop it. She swallows and her lower lip trembles. “I need to find him.” She mutters again softly. “I can’t just do nothing, I have to…”

She feels arms wrap tightly around her middle, she knows that it is Zuko. He is a lot taller than Katara. A lot warmer too. “Let’s go home, Azula.”

“I can have my dad cook something, maybe grill some salmon?” Katara offers.

She shakes her head. How can she delight in Sokka’s father’s cooking when Sokka himself cannot? “I can’t go home…” she gestures to the open ocean before her. He can be anywhere out there and she needs to start looking. 

“And you can’t go on an ocean expedition…” chimes a third voice as it draws nearer. She pictures his bold gait and his balled fists. “...Without letting your father know first.”

Azula goes tense in Zuko’s arms.


	9. By The Wrist

_ The first time she had gotten in trouble, that she remembers is when she had wandered down to the beach without asking first.  _

_ It probably wouldn’t have been so bad had she not wandered away from the beach and onto the boardwalk as well.  _

_ She couldn’t help it, the sights, the sounds, the smells...they were all so enticing. There was a cacophony of them and they each called to her. The first sense that had enticed her to wander further from the lighthouse was the smell of cotton candy and an aroma of grilled hamburgers. This was a time before La-bsters had truly been established. She’d been able to resist until the scent of ice cream added itself to the mix. At this, a five year old Azula was sold.  _

_ On stubby and wobbly toddler legs, she shuffled alarmingly fast towards the bustle of the piers where she was greeted with an almost overwhelming bombarding of sensory cues. The clang of a bell on the hour as sailors changed shifts and docked and hustled about. She heard the spray of water on wood as teenage boys hosed and scrubbed the piers down and the ruckus of rope sliding and frustrated cussing while a team of girls and boys helped anchor and clean newly home boats. She could hear waves smacking against the columns holding the boardwalk up and the shouts of merchants as they fought for tourist money. _

_ She could hear the bickerings of lost tourists and the cheerful yelps one one of them spotted a dolphin that had swam too close to the summertime traffic. She heard the sizzle of a grill and the rush of a bike as it whizzed past. _

_ It was a myriad of brand new sights as well. Palm fronds, she first heard the earthy rustle of them brushing against one another, flapped in a hot breeze. Strings of light in all colors, but mostly a golden-yellow illuminated restaurant patios and curled around palms. There were dancers in beaded skirts with shell anklets and men and women eating fire.  _

_ There were fireworks that blotted out loud reggeaton music and a large and slowly turning faris wheel.  _

_ There were bikes and rollerskates of many brands and toned teens carrying surfboards, discussing final summer plans and how they weren’t quite ready to go back to Port Tui-La High. _

_ Vendors sold rapidly blinking, flashing lights of blue, green, and red. The LED contraptions were hats, wands, and cheap jewelry. The same vendor sold glow sticks and wore two arms full of them and several necklaces of them. All across the boardwalk she spotted kids with them and she wanted one of her own. _

_ But she hadn’t the money, she hadn’t even the conception of money. Not that it was much of a problem. The vendor patted her on the head and handed her several glow sticks. He told her to thank her father for running the lighthouse and looking out for the sailors. His son was a sailor.  _

_ In retrospect, it was probably he who’d phoned the lighthouse to let her parents know that she was wandering the boardwalk unattended. He bribed her to stay put with a large ice cream cone and a plate of onion rings. She’d sat their kicking her legs on a stool that was much too tall for her.  _

_ That was how she met Toph. Evidently, the girl also stumbled away from her parents. Though this was an accident. The three year old, born blind, had lost hold of her father’s hand and then lost all bearings.  _

_ The poor vendor had his hands full that night. Azula doesn’t remember what they’d talked about but she remembers not quite grasping what it meant to be blind and kept trying to show the girl lights with different brightnesses, hoping that if she found something bright enough, Toph would see it. _

_ Ursa showed up before Poppy BeiFong and refused to let her stay and talk, because she was in a lot of trouble. Once home Zuko chuckled as she received her second scolding and Ozai sent her to bed with a promise that she’d be spending the next several days in her room instead of on the beach with Zuko and Ursa. _

_ She probably wouldn’t have gotten in so much trouble had she chose to take her excursion in daylight hours. _

  
  


**.oOo.**

His arms are folded over his chest and he wears a decent scowl. Zuko can tell that she wants to shout at him, to tell him that, maybe if he’d been home she would have been able to tell him that she was leaving. She knows, as well as he does, better than to talk back to him. 

“When was I supposed to have done that?” She mutters despite her knowing. “Perhaps when we had lunch?” 

Their father’s face is split between hurt and anger. 

“I’m going to find Sokka. Zuko can’t stop me and you can’t stop me either.” She pulls out of his embrace. He is reminded again of how close she and Ozai used to be, it is in her posture and on her expression. They fold their arms the same way, they shoot the same glare at each other, with the same creased brows and the same frown. The same, sturdy and stubborn stances. 

Stand offs between the two, though rare, never end well. Especially not for Azula. Zuko firmly grips her shoulder and mutters, “please just let him have the last word for once.” 

She shrugs him off. “No. Not this time.” Azula grumbles. “I’m tired of doing his job for him while he goes off and fucks around in some soddy bar! I don’t want to spend another summer upkeeping the lighthouse instead of going to pool and beach parties. I don’t want to manage  _ his  _ finances…”

“Azula.” Ozai growls. It is a warning. The one Zuko usually receives before earning himself a solid slap. 

“You made me a promise.” Azula declares. “You said that we’d spend the day together, like we used to.” 

He can hear the hurt in her voice and suddenly he understands why she is so eager to leave. He doesn’t think that it is just about Sokka. If things can’t be how they used to, she’d rather forget them entirely and start something new. 

“I am your father, I give the orders. You life in my house and under my rules.”

She gives a sarcastic and bitter laugh. “Is it your house?” She asks. “ _ I _ work for it,  _ I _ pay the bills.” She looks to him, “ _ we  _ pay the bills. Right, Zuko?”

Zuko swallows, he doesn’t want to get on either of their bad sides. No matter what he says he will find himself on someone’s bad side and if he says nothing at all, both of them will look down on him. So he supposes that he might as well state the truth. 

He nods, “we’ve been keeping the lighthouse together.”

Ozai’s upper lip twitches into a scowl. “The both of you wouldn’t have that lighthouse to live in if not for…”

“Great grandfather Sozin.” Azula cuts him off. Both he and Katara flinch as Ozai’s hand lurches forward. He must not have had that many drinks because he doesn’t strike her. Though he grabs her wrist with a much stronger grip than necessary. 

Katara seems to relax but he is no less tense. He has seen Azula take on their father before. She’d done it when he was in one of his drunken rages. And she’d done it on his behalf. Mostly Zuko took the brunt of Ozai’s drunk aggression. That time Azula had taken it for him. They’d gone to a party...snuck out to it. At first he’d claimed that he had been worried when he’d come home to an empty lighthouse. But that worry turned to anger all too quickly. Words that he can’t quite recall had been exchanged. But he does remember one thing. He remembers Azula yelling, “maybe if you did make  _ her  _ mad, she wouldn’t have gone sailing that day.” Something had snapped and soon Azula was on the floor, the corner of her mouth split and her jaw already swelling. Zuko remembers her shaking and Chan coming to step in front of her as Ozai loomed closer. Chan could only do so much, he found himself on the floor next to her before she was yanked to her feet and practically dragged across the beach in front of the entire party.

Azula hardly ever cries.

And never in front of people.

That night she was weeping as he tugged her along, she’d stumbled and tripped in an attempt to keep him from dragging him any further.

He was arrested that night and he’d very nearly lost custody of them.

Everyone knows better than to talk about it. 

Azula likes to pretend like it hadn’t happened at all.

Zuko knows that this is why Azula has gone quiet. Why her hand his shaking in their father’s hold. Why she is looking up at him with dread and anger. Something flickers in his eyes and he drops her hand. She hastily retracts it and rubs her wrist with her other hand. Zuko can tell that it is already reddening, that it will probably be bruised by tomorrow.

He can now tell that their father is at least a little intoxicated. But not enough for it to not register, that he’d hurt her. “Azula…” he begins. 

She is athletic. She is fast. 

When she runs, she won’t be caught.

Zuko has never seen her run so fast, even the sand doesn’t hinder her as she kicks up clouds of it. He doesn’t know where she is going and he isn’t sure that she knows either. She just wants to get away from Ozai.

Katara wraps her arms around Zuko, her eyes are tearful.

**.oOo.**

Ozai watches her bolt down the beach. He thinks to give chase but decides that it is better if he doesn’t. He rubs his hand over his face. He was only angry because he thought that he was going to lose her. He couldn’t lose her. 

But he has. 

He loses everything he loves and maybe he should just let her go. 

He tries not to think of the night that he was arrested, but that night is etched into his mind. He thinks about it more often than not. Her face; how utterly shocked and horrified she had looked, staring up at him from the floor.

There was no sense of pride or power in seeing that terror on her face. There was only shame. But at that time, shame turned to anger and he was yanking her across the beach as she kicked and screamed. He is certain that she had pleaded with him to stop, told him that he was hurting her, but most of the night is a blur. 

He recalls having dragged her across the beach. 

It was after that night that she began looking at him differently. With mistrust and sometimes barely concealed fear. She mostly avoided him in the months to follow and she hasn’t entirely warmed back up to him, not that he has made it easy.

“I can go after her.” Katara offers. 

Zuko nods, “Yeah it’s probably better if you do it.”

Ozai rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. He wishes that things could be the way they used to be. He wishes that his children wouldn’t look upon him with dread. Katara makes her way in the direction that Azula had fled.

“Zuko.” He begins.

Zuko only shakes his head, “I’m going to visit Mai or TyLee.” He doesn’t look him in the eyes as he stuffs his hands into his pockets and starts for the pier. 

Ozai looks at the boat bobbing in the water.

Is he really so bad that they had to run?


	10. A Little Longer

_ He could never find her, no matter how hard he tried. No one could find her and no one ever did. Not until she wanted them too. _

_ “It’s just a dumb game Azula!” Zuko would always declared. “Who cares if you always win.” He did and she knew it. They all cared and they were all jealous.  _

_ She always had the best hiding spots and she owed it partially to her teeny build; she could scramble into places that none of her friends, save for Toph, could fit in. To some extent, she still can, but not as many as she could as a child.  _

_ That day she had tucked herself into a particularly tight wedge nestled in the cove. During their play, nothing was off limits, every crevice and orifice was fair game. Though they mostly avoided the cave in the cove because it was too dark and too wet.  _

_ Azula had always been more adventurous, more darling, and, in childhood, more reckless and less careful. She shambled up a large rock, it was slick and wet and she was almost certain that she would fall and give away her hiding spot with a large splash. Luck was on her side, she managed to cling on and reach the top. From there she climbed her way into the wedge and waited, listening to the waves lapping against the sandstone and the steady drip drop of the moisture leaking from the cave ceiling. She could feel slimy seaweed sloughing down her arm and she stuck her tongue out in disgust. But she would endure it for the sake of her victory streak.  _

_ A few minutes turn into ten and then ten into fifteen before she heard Sokka and Zuko declare they gave up. Their voices were distant. It took another five before Katara made her declaration.  _

_ Azula’s smugness turned to pure dread in an instant. It is the instant that she tried to pull herself out of the wedge. It was an all encompassing terror when she found that the hole in the wall was too small for even she afterall. She remembers how her stomach had sank. How another ten minutes went by and then another. A feeling of suffocation and helplessness as she tried fruitlessly to back out of the crevice. An effort that only became more worthless as the panic had set in more. _

_ Soon it had been an hour and then two before it finally occurred to her that she should cry or, at least, scream. She intended to only scream once, but that had opened the floodgates to all out bawling.  _

_ That was all she had needed to do. “I found you!” Sokka declared smugly. She had never been more relieved to lose a game. _

_ Hakoda’s voice was the next that she’d heard, a soothing and soft one instructing her to stop crying for a moment and to relax her body as much as possible and then to suck in her belly and duck her head as close to the floor as she could.  _

_ Strong hands wrapped around her ankles and pulled. She’d heard Ursa whimpering softly. She was given a few bone jerking tugs before her body had come free. Her knees were skinned and her cheeks and elbows scrapped.  _

_ Ozai had passed her to Ursa who’d held her nearly as tightly as the cave had and caressed her hair.  _

_ She hadn’t gotten in trouble that night, they were too relieved for that, but she had earned a reputation for constant childhood accidents and mishaps.  _

**.oOo.**

She doesn’t want to go home, she wants to go anywhere but home. But the longer she delays, the madder he is going to get. Katara knows this. She usually doesn’t like to be touched, but this time she lets Katara rub her back while she sits with her elbows digging into her thighs and her face buried in her hands. 

Hakoda is just as aware as Katara. “If you need to stay here until he sobers up, you can take Sokka’s bed. I know that he won’t mind.”

Azula nods despite her apprehension. She hasn’t been in his room since he’d disappeared. She isn’t sure that she can take it, not tonight. Not when her mental state is already in the beginning stages of immense turmoil. 

“You don’t mind the sofa, do you, Zuko?” The man asks. 

“Couch is fine.” She hears his reply from down the hall. 

She puts her hand on the doorknob but can’t bring herself to turn it. She gives a slight jolt at the sound of footsteps. “It was hard for me at first, too.” Katara confesses. “But it isn’t so bad after that.” 

Azula takes a deep breath and twists the knob. The door falls open and she is greeted by a familiar ambiance. His walls are painted deep blue, he hasn’t bothered to take down the ocean life wall stickers that he’d put up as a kid. In fact he still has a few stuffed sharks and jellyfish strewn about in the corner. But he has also acquired several surfboards to hang on the wall--strictly decorative. And from the ceiling hang a collection of shark teeth and a few fishbones. 

The floor has as much clutter as she remembers; a stack of knocked over reggaeton and reggae albums lies at the foot of his bed near a collection of sport-themed DVD’s. Clothes, mostly socks and aloha shirts, are cast randomly about the floor and drape over a chair by a desk. 

The desk teems with other trinkets; a few bobble heads, 3D photo crystals depicting jelly fish, some unopened snack bars, and a few poorly done drawings along with pencils among other things. She then finds the pictures. There is one of just he and Katara holding fishing poles. Next to that is one of their family at the grand opening of their food joint. And next to that…

Her stomach flutters and her eyes prickle. He has his arm around her, flashing the camera a goofy grin. He wears the most ridiculous pineapple shaped sunglasses and a straw hat. She remembers him forcing her to wear an even more ridiculous clownfish hat and a cheap rainbow lei. 

Her tear finally escapes when she sees the next photo. She doesn’t remember it having been taken. Which is probably because she is asleep in the photo. Asleep and clutching a stuffed stingray. The same one she’d had since she was a child and her parents took she and Zuko to the aquarium. She is certain that Zuko still has his stuffed turtle. 

She wishes that Sokka were home, if only to kick his ass for sneaking that picture. “He really liked that one.” Katara nods to that picture. 

“Yeah…” she trails off quietly. “I’m sure he did.” 

“I’ll leave you alone?”

Azula nods.

“I’ll send Zuko to get you when dinner is ready.”

She nods once more.

She waits until Katara leaves to make her way to Sokka’s bed. Her lower lip trembles as she climbs into it and bunches herself into a ball. It smells like him. In some way, being tangled in his blankets is like being swaddled in his arms. But it lacks the warmth that he had. In the privacy of the room she cries more openly. 

For the loss of Sokka. 

For the loss of her mother. 

For the loss of her father as he used to be. 

She cries for her failed attempt. For her inability to even search for Sokka. For the abuse she’d taken and for the abuse she was about to take as soon as she inevitably faced her father. He was going to reek of alcohol and testosterone. 

Her eyes are dry again and she has managed to catch an hour or so of sleep when she hears the knock. “The food is ready. It smells wonderful too.” Zuko calls. 

“You can meet me at the table, Zuzu.” Groggily, Azula pulls herself up. She runs her hands over her face. She knows that her makeup is smeared and her hair is tousled. It doesn’t really matter, she has no one to impress right now. 

She makes her way to the kitchen and pulls out a chair. Kya offers her a loving smile and her belly flutters again. That smile reminds her too much of her mothers for her to not have to bite the inside of her lip to keep tears at bay. 

She is being much too sentimental tonight. 

“I’m sorry that you’re having such a rough night, sweetheart.” Kya cups her hand over Azula’s. 

She doesn’t seem to take much offense at Azula’s lack of an answer. She eats in silence, listening to the other four make mundane conversation mostly about shows and how the restaurant repairs are coming along. She picks at her food, not really tasting it at all. It isn’t that the food isn’t rich and scrumptious, more so that her taste buds have dulled and her appetite has fled to make room for a feeling of sorrow. 

There comes a knock, a heavy knock. Azula’s stomach plummets and the rest of her appetite is sapped away. 

“I think that it is better if you return home.” Hakoda fills the doorway. 

“I need to talk to her.” Ozai insists. She listens for a slur. 

“We are in the middle of dinner.”

“I can wait.” She doesn’t need to see him to know that he his crossing his arms. 

“After dinner we have other plans.” 

“The discussion will not be long.” She hears no slur and she isn’t sure if this is more or less worrisome. She wonders if she should just get it over with. With a deep breath she stands. 

“Azula…” Zuko starts. She pulls her wrist out of his grasp and makes her way to the door. Her eyes are dim and as impassive as she can will them to be. 

Hakoda seems to go tense. 

“Father.” She greets as dimly as her eyes. 

The man looks her over and rubs his hand over his face again. “I didn’t come to the beach to fight with you.” 

“But you still did it.” She mumbles, absently massaging her bruised wrists. His eyes follow her hand and find the purple-yellow. She thinks that he might have winced. She slips that hand into her pocket. “What do you want.” 

He holds out an ice pack, “just to talk with you.” 

“We can talk when you’re sober.” She replies with as much coldness as the pack he holds out. She retreats back into the house. 

They are three of Sokka’s favorite romantic comedies in, and she still can’t get Ozai out of her mind. She wishes that Sokka could be there to watch the movies with them. 

**.oOo.**

Being back in the lighthouse is dreadful. She knew that Hakoda and Kya couldn’t let them stay forever. Though they offered to take them back if Ozai laid a hand on either of them. Her father isn’t home yet, but this is much worse than him having waited by the door. The anxiety of waiting for him to finally arrive is getting to she and Zuko both. 

Zuko spends the better portion of the day pacing around the lighthouse. She is more subdued, taking up the demeanor of a death row inmate, with a silent resignation of her fate. 

The door falls open and Zuko jolts. Azula grips the edge of her chair as Ozai’s footfalls echo. “Both of you!” He calls. Zuko freezes where he stands, his body locks. Azula can feel her mind ebbing away. It has been a long time since her mind has gone distant and impassive, but it is her only defense. “Come down and have a seat.”

Zuko catches her hand as she numbly lets her feet take over. “Azula, don’t.” She shakes her head. “Better to get it over with.” 

Zuko follows her down the spiral staircase. Ozai sits at the table, waiting. Feeling slightly wobbly, she takes her own seat. Zuko remains standing and a distance away from the table. When it comes to father, he might just be smarter than she. 

Their father takes a deep breath, sets a stack of papers onto the table, and pushes them towards her. She quietly scans them over. 

“What are those for?” Zuko asks. 

She meets Ozai’s stare and he nods. “They’re...AA forms, Zuzu.” 

“ Khozen wouldn’t pour me another glass until I went.” He grumbles. 

“How long have you been attending?” Zuko asks. 

“Just a few days now.”

“Is that where you were on Monday?” Azula asks, suddenly feeling as though she had been the aggressor on the beach that day.

He pinches the bridge of his nose before confessing, “no, I was at the bar.”

“So much for, Khozen not pouring you another glass…” Zuko grumbles. 

“I went to AA and he poured me a glass as he said he would.” Ozai shrugs. 

“Have fun sharing that story at your next meeting.” Zuko crosses his arms. “Is that all you wanted?”

“Not quite.” Ozai replies. “I want you to take that boat that the two of you bough and return it…”

“I’m going to find Sokka.” Azula hisses. “I…”

“What you are going to do, Azula, is return that boat.” He pauses. “That money was your college fund, was it not?” 

Azula flushes. 

“And Zuko’s...and a good portion of our lighthouse fund.”

Her lower lip quivers. 

“You are going to return that boat. Khozen’s will do us just fine and it will cost us much less.”

Azula looks up from the table. “Khonzen’s boat?”

“He used to be a pirate. He and I struck a deal. If I...succeed with this,” he gestures to the packets, “he will lend me the boat free of charge and we can go and search for answers together.” He pauses. “I lost your mother, I’m not about to let the two of you sail away without me. Understood.” 

Tears well in her eyes again , but this time they are born of a different emotion. Hope, she realizes. She nods, “yes, father.”

“Does that sound fair to you?”

Frankly, she thinks that, for once, her father might be getting the short end of the deal. But then, getting clean isn’t such a terrible fate. “It does.” 

“Does that sound fair to  _ both  _ of you?”

Zuko shifts his weight, never uncrossing his arms. “I guess.” Azula can’t blame him for his skepticism. 

“Can you wait a little longer?” He asks. “Maybe help Katara and her family with La-bsters and have you surf tournaments with Chan? And then we can go out to sea.”

“Can I bring Katara?” Zuko asks.

“That is up to Hakoda and Kya.” 

Azula doesn’t particularly want to delay, but the offer on the table shows more promise than spending her college fund and taking an impulsive, grief-driven expedition. “I can wait a little longer.”


	11. Normalcy

The waves break around her with impressive size. Azula can only attribute it to the after effects of the turbulent weather. She tastes salt and seaspray as her board cuts across the underbelly of the wave. From the right vantage she can see the sun through crystal clear waters, the way it glints and sparkles throwing prismic reflections upon her skin. From the wrong vantage point, it beams directly into her eyes and she has to squint against it or hold her hand at her brows, nearly throwing her balance. 

She carves up and down the wave, it is exhilarating and she wonders why she has neglected part taking for so long. It provides the thrill that she craves, the sensation of falling that spikes her adrenaline. 

Azula licks her lips, tasting the salt upon them. She is in the mood for something flashy, something that she hasn’t done in ages. It is a tricky feat, something she had just barely managed to pull off before entering a self-imposed hiatus. 

Evidently, she isn’t sure that she will be able to pull it off at all.

She climbs to the very top of the wave and gives her board a very abrupt snap. The spray she kicks up rises in an incredible arc. Each little drop catches in the sun and glimmers around her likes sparks thrown from a bonfire. 

It is spectacular until she loses her footing. She supposes that she has done better than she had in the past, when she hadn’t even been able to produce the spray. Her body smacks the waves with a stinging force and they take her under. She is thankful that the strap on her ankle keeps her board tethered to her as she fights the waves. She would hate to lose it, it was a gift from Sokka. Sokka who had noted her fondness of the color blue and her enjoyment of watching storms over the ocean and bought her a sleek midnight blue board with neon blue lines of lightning painted all over it. 

Azula resurfaces and, panting heavily, carries the board back to the shore. 

Seaweed clings to her shoulder and dangles from the board. It falls to the sand with a wet pop when her footsteps cause the board to shudder. She drops to the sand with a huff and crosses her legs with one fluid motion. She rests her elbow upon the bend of her leg and her chin in her palm. Her expression fixed into a rather full pout. 

She has lost her touch. It was a nearly perfect execution. But nearly perfect won’t cut it come the competition. A fall like that would have cost her critical points.

Jet’s pats her shoulder, “I’ll give that trick a solid ten and your landing an eleven for entertainment.”

She watches Chan paddle towards the next wave.

“It was a dreadful landing.” Azula grumbles. 

He shrugs. “I mean it’s been months since you’ve surfed. Welcome back by the way.”

“So what, I should be able to…”

“Retain a skill you  _ just  _ finished learning to perform?”

Azula shrugs. 

“At least give yourself a few tries.” Ruon-Jian suggests. “Snaps are a pain in the ass!”

She watches Chan perform a seamless bottom turn and then a kickflip. He lands it well and the wave drops away. “You’re up.” He motions to Jet. Jet gives her a two finger salute before running at the new wave. 

“I take it that you’re doing better?” Chan asks. 

“Better.” She tries the word on her tongue. “Yes, quite. Katara and her family have been good to Zuzu and I.” She has been called a liar before, Zuko calls her a liar quite often. She can’t entirely disagree, not when she is lying to herself.

“Yeah, where’s he at anyways? Ruon misses his favorite loser boy.”

“Dude, shut up!” He scoffs. Nothing peeves him more than having his most absurd, middle school insults brought up.

“On a date with Katara.” Azula replies, her stomach fluttering with envy and loss. She should be on a date of her own, she  _ would  _ be. She swallows, “they’re at the ice cream parlor.”

She is not okay, and to insist that she is, is a larger lie than she has ever told. Jet returns and Ruon retreats, happy for an excuse to run from remarks that make him blush. 

“Is your dad still attending AA?”

Azula nods. “Regularly.” She leaves out that he has snuck a glass or two already. She supposes that it is much better than his binge drinking. Still it frustrates her and neither she nor Zuko have the courage or stupidity to get between the man and his glasses. 

“You gonna give the snap another go?” Ruon asks. 

Again, Azula nods. She picks up her surfboard and returns to the water. This wave is some larger than the first. She readies herself to go for another snap when a realization dawns upon her. She has been presented with a rare opportunity, she rides upon a perfect wave. She could go for a snap, yes. But how often is the chance for a tube ride bestowed upon a person?

Azula takes a deep breath and finds herself some steady footing. She crouches down and glides along as the wave folds over. A grin breaks over her face--she thinks that this one may very well be genuine--as she rides through a perfect tunnel of water. It is a thrilling feeling of elation that she hasn’t felt in ages. If for only a very long minute, it is just she and that wave.

That perfect crashing wave. 

There is nothing like it. Two walls of water to the sides of her with a liquid ceiling and floor. The wave is immaculately and unapologetically aquamarine in color and she could swear, God, she could swear that she saw several tiny minnows swimming their way through just riding that flawless wave with her. 

She rides the wave until it flattens with a somewhat noisy crash. Without the liquid roar of the wave she can hear them whooping and hollering something grand from the shoreline. She guides the surfboard to a halt and then allows it to pop out from under her feet. She catches it and, overcome by jubilation and a sense of accomplishment, she throws her arms around Jet. 

Were TyLee involved she very well may have been jumping up and down. Instead, he squeezes her tighter as she has a true laugh for the first time since Sokka had gone. “Nice, dude.” Ruon remarks. It is accented by a few final claps from Chan. 

Her excitement waynes and her smile begins to fade when it dawns upon her that her arms should be around Sokka. That he should have been there to witness such a monumental moment in her not yet professional surfing career.

She suddenly feels ashamed. Ashamed for smiling and having fun while he is still out there, lost and probably deprived of hope.

She should be sad right now. She should be mourning. 

She pulls out of the hug.

“Hey, I’m glad you finally hung out with us again.” Chan notes as he bats his face with a towel. 

She wraps her own around her waist and tosses her hair over her shoulders. “Yes, it was...nice to…” she trails off. “Get a sense of normalcy back.” 

“You gonna swing by again?” He offers.

“We’ll be riding waves from noon to three, two days from now.” Ruon adds.

Azula nods. “I’ll try to make it, so long as nothing comes up.” Evidently that day will be a busy one. She, Zuko, and Katara are due to go roller skating with Toph and Aang around sunset. 

She supposes that she should be thankful for the abundance of distractions. Which might be exactly what made it so easy to accept another invitation. Between that and the creeping knowledge that she could end up alone…

Alone while Zuko has Katara, Aang has Toph, Mai has TyLee, Chan and Ruon have each other, and Suki has a shy boy named Teo.

She watches Chan and Ruon make their way down the beach. “We’ll be seein’ ya then.” Ruon calls back. Chan slings his arm over his shoulder.

“Yes.” Azula agrees. “Two days from now.” With their departure she feels her energy fleeing as well. It is so sudden as though all of her euphoria has turned to sorrow. She finds herself a picnic bench and sits upon the table, elbows resting on her knees, head in her hands.

The sun blazes as it begins its descent. 

“You good?” Jet asks. 

She shrugs quietly. “I’ll be fine.” Another blatant lie. 

They sit in silence for a while she hears the crinkle of a wrapper as Jet awkwardly fumbles with a candy bar. “Want a bite.”

“No thanks.” 

More silence. 

More awkward fumbling.

“Hey, so, I was thinking…” He trails off. 

“Yeah?”

“I hope it’s not too soon, but I was wondering if you might like to catch a movie or something? Or have dinner somewhere?”

Azula bites the inside of her lip. She has never broken it off with Sokka. She has never wanted to. And yet there is that nagging in her head, that inkling that he won’t be coming home. And if she waits she might be waiting forever. 

She thinks of Zuko’s soft smile and those dumb sloppy kisses he gives Katara. She thinks about the closeness and the laughter. About what that had been like when she’d got to feel it for herself. When she would spend the night at Sokka’s and he would fight with her for the blankets and the popcorn bowl during movie nights. 

There is such an emptiness without it. Without those feelings and those moments. 

She stares intensely at her hands, fighting to keep her emotions in check.

“Yes Jet, that would be nice.” 


	12. Ordinary World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10 internet points to anyone who gets the chapter title reference.

_ Azula wishes that she could say her first date went flawlessly. But it didn’t. She was awkward as hell and she isn’t sure how she’d managed to get a second one. God, she doesn’t even know why she had been so awkward, they’d been friends since childhood. But she always finds herself tripping over her own emotions when it comes to love, romance, and softer things.  _

_ She isn’t meant for it. She is meant for competition and relishing in victory. For bursts of power and excitement, the thrill of a new endeavor or achievement. And yet she found herself wandering the boardwalk that evening hand in hand with her childhood friend. The sun was well on its way down painting the entirety of the boardwalk in a vivid shade of orange.  _

_ “Sno-cone?” Sokka offered. “Cotton candy?”  _

_ He had been spoiling her all night and she was the one with the cash to throw around. She’d made a promise to herself to make sure to pay for their next date and to make it a somewhat upscale one.  _

_ “Just cotton candy.” She answered. They hadn’t even made it to the tiki restaurant that he’d wanted to show her, she didn’t want to fill up on snack food before they got there. He held out a cotton candy cone, picked a small blue fluff of it off, and said, “open your mouth.” _

_ “Why?” She’d asked holding her hand out.  _

_ He had rolled his eyes. “I’m gonna feed it to you.” _

_ “I can feed myself?” _

_ His laugh had been precious, she almost didn’t mind that it was at her expense. Her cheeks had slightly colored. “Sometimes couples like to feed each other.” _

_ Azula crinkled her brows, “why?” _

_ “Because it’s romantic.” He replied simply. _

_ “How so?” _

_ He laughs again. “I don’t know, I didn’t make the rule. Now open your mouth.” _

_ Hesitantly, Azula obliged and he popped the piece of cotton candy onto her tongue. There was a burst of sugary sweetness as it dissolved.  _

_ “Was that so hard?” He nudged her.  _

_ “It was agonizing difficult.” She grumbled, folding her hands over her chest.  _

_ He slung an arm across her neck and over her shoulder. “C’mon, we’re almost there.” He pointed to a small little shack with a straw and bamboo roof. Colorful paper lanterns hung from the boarders of the roof and decorated the ceiling. On each of the four supporting posts, circled bright strands of cheap lights shaped like pineapples and flamingos.  _

_ “Tacky.” She commented with a roll of her eyes.  _

_ “Tiki.” He corrected, making her wonder why she felt so flustered when he’d been the one making the cringeworthy jokes.  _

_ Even from that distance she had heard the thrumming, upbeat drums of that year’s most popular reggaeton hit. No wonder he’d liked that restaurant so much. He took her hand again and tugged her along in an excited speedwalk. “Alright, Azula, are you ready for the best smoothie you’ll ever taste!?”  _

_ He was so enthusiastic that she had to crack a smile. “I hope that they’re as good as you say they are.”  _

_ “They have some pretty tasty onion rings too.”  _

_ It was getting easier but her tummy was still fluttering incessantly. Sokka pulled out a stool and motioned for her to have a seat. Azula looked the chair over and took a deep breath, she had to boost herself up on the lower rung of the chair and quite literally climb it to actually get to her seat, it left her feeling doubly awkward. Sokka’s chuckling hadn’t helped. He wiped a tear from his eye, “geez, sometimes I forget that you're  _ that  _ short.” _

_ “Shut up!” She snapped, he only snickered harder. She was certain that he was getting a kick out of seeing her face go bright red.  _

_ There were so many couples out and about that night, and somehow she felt like she just stood out among them. As though she were some sort of fake, a bizarre parody of what a girlfriend was supposed to be and look like. Her laughs had been too forced and there had been undertones of nervousness. And for the life of her she couldn’t figure out why. She’d known him for so long and she’d never had any problems conversing with him. Never had any problems being herself. _

_ But somehow this was different. Something about it just was.  _

_ She felt like she was on her way to ruining not just their new relationship, but their longtime friendship as well.  _

_ “You alright?” He asked.  _

_ She’d nodded.  _

_ “You just…” he trailed off and took an onion ring and then a sip of his smoothie--mango-peach--and continued, “aren’t being you.” He seemed to think for a moment before backtracking, “you seem anxious. Am I doing something wrong?” _

_ Her heart halted. Because it was her. Something was wrong with her, not him. She shakes her head, “you’re fine, Sokka.”  _

_ He gave her a soft smile and cupped his hand over hers. His ocean blue eyes were so soft and loving, it made her feel that much guiltier. “This is your first date, isn’t it?” _

_ She nodded.  _

_ “It’s always a little awkward at first.” He assured.  _

_ Azula thought that it ran a little deeper than that. Genuinely, she wanted the affection. Truly a kiss sounded nice. But actually receiving one? The very possibility that her night would probably end with one…? It caused her stomach to lurch.  _

_ It was just that she hadn’t ever opened up before. Never found the courage to show a softer side of herself and it just felt weird and wrong to do so. _

_ Sokka hummed softly, “hey, I have an idea!” He declared.  _

_ “Is it a good one?” _

_ He wriggled his brows. “It’s an idea.” _

_ Azula buried her face in her hands, each time he’d ever said that, it turned out to be a dreadful one.  _

_ “You just sit there, okay?” _

_ She bit the inside of her cheek. “Sure, Sokka.” She paused, “but if this is awful, I’m going to throw you off of the pier, understand?” _

_ He flashed her a mischievous grin, “guess I better get my swim trunks on.”  _

_ That night she was exposed to the worst karaoke cover that she’d ever heard, but it sure as hell made her feel less obvious and out of place. For that night she was simply, ‘that girl with the karaoke boyfriend’.  _

_ He certainly was no siren. He was more comparable to, perhaps a walrus where vocal quality was concerned.  _

_ That night she pushed him off of the pier just as she had promised.  _

_ That night, he told her that she could take her time to get used to things, that they didn’t have to have their first kiss right away. _

_ That night they had their first kiss anyways; on the edge of the dock she’d just thrown him from. He hugged her close and soaked her clothes with ocean water. _

**.oOo.**

A walk on the boardwalk is out of the question, because that is where Sokka had taken her. It feels dreadfully strange to have her hand in Jet’s. It isn’t particularly unpleasant by any means. In fact, Jet is very sweet and gentle. A stark contrast to Sokka, who enjoyed playing rough with and teasing her. 

It is both a relief and a sting. The contrast is so stark that she doesn’t feel like she is trying to use him as a fill-in Sokka but it very considerably accentuates that Sokka is gone and that she is with someone else.

“How about a walk on the beach?” He suggests. 

That would make sense, they spend a lot of time on the beach surfing. Maybe they can have themselves a more passionate practices. But the beach is very close to the cove, she and Sokka’s cover. Though that beach isn’t the only beach, it is simply the closest one to her house. 

“There’s a beach across town that I’ve been meaning to check out.” Azula says. 

“Alright, a walk on the beach it is.” He beams. He slides an arm around her waist and leads her to his car.

Suddenly she feels shamefully shy again. Sokka is the only person she’d ever let touch her like that. Sokka is the only person who she thought would. Though it doesn’t feel particularly wrong to let Jet do so. It, in fact, feels rather nice to have that kind of affection again. 

All the same it feels wrong. So horribly wrong to let him take her by the waist when she’d never truly called it off with Sokka. When he is probably isolated and touched-starved somewhere out at sea. 

And especially when she catches herself pretending that it is Sokka who is holding her.

“What kind of music are you in the mood for?” Jet asks as he messes with the radio dials, “personally I think synthwave has the right vibe for cruising down a road by the ocean.”

“Synthwave is fine.” She forces a smile. 

“Cool.” He pushes at his sunglasses and leans back in the seat. 

It is nice to have the wind in her hair, to feel it warmly on her face as she watches the palm trees rush by. In some sense it makes her feel alive again. She glances at Jet who nods his head to the music. The wind flutters his hair. One hand on the wheel he reaches for his soda and has a sip before putting it back in the cupholder. “Want a sip?”

Azula brings her lips to the staw, she can slightly taste him on it as she has her drink. “Thank you.” She says, putting the cup back down. 

“Yeah, any time.” He pulls into a parking spot. “Leave the boards here or do you think we’ll use them?”

Azula thinks for a moment. “Leave them. We can just walk this time.”

He nods, “sounds good, I think it’d be nice to just walk and get to know you better.”

Just like that it occurs to her that they talk almost daily but they never really had a real conversation. They mostly talk about surfing and parties. It will be rather nice to know his interests and hobbies. What his home life is like and what his pet peeves are. 

He holds his hand out and she takes it as they make their way down to the sand. For much of the sunset they sit at the shoreline and dip their feet in the water, discussing more mundane things. 

He really loves synthwave and his favorite color is brown of all colors. He says that it reminds him driftwood and that he used to build driftwood castles and pirate ships with his childhood friends before he’d moved to Port Tui-La. He’d called his crew the Freedom Fighters and they were ‘good and noble’ pirates. He mentioned that his first mate, Smellerbee caused a mutiny one time and took over the ship. 

Azula had, had a good chuckle at this. 

For herself, Azula mentioned the fish game. She also made note that she preferred tea to coffee and that blue is superior to brown in every way. 

After some time of quiet, just watching the sun show its last rays while skipping rocks and fidgeting with shells Jet says, “hey, I’m sorry about your mom and Sokka. The reason I moved is because I lost both of my parents in a house fire.” He pauses. “Some men in masks just poured gasoline all around and lit it up while they were asleep. I was at Longshot’s house…” he trails off. “I never did find out who they were or why they did it. I live with my uncle now.”

Azula swallows, her belly flutters for his loss. “Yeah.” She stuffs her hands into the pockets of her shorts. “It’s...it never feels the same. There’s this emptiness…”

Jet nods. “And you can’t fill it.” 

“It’s like there’s a hole. You can meet new people, but that doesn’t fill the hole, you just have a mound of sand next to the hole. You can push the sand in but it doesn’t quite fill it right.”

Jet quirks a brow. “Yeah, that’s a good way of describing it.” He pauses. “But having a new mound is better than nothing at all, right?”

She can see it in his eyes that it runs deeper than just a general analogy. 

She thinks for a moment before finally nodding. “Yes. I think that it is better to try to make something new, even if it isn’t the same.”

Jet’s darkly colored eyes light up. He tenderly caresses her cheek and leans in.

For a fleeting moment she thinks that it might be too soon. She very nearly tells him not yet. But is it really too soon? It has been months. She hasn’t feel a connection like this, a warmth like this in months. 

She decides that it isn’t too soon. 

His lips find hers.

It is a kind kiss, soft and delicate. Her belly flutters again, both pleasantly and with a sense of melancholy. She isn’t alone. 

She deepens the kiss.

A tear slips down her cheek.


	13. Juice Box Days

_ When he was a boy he and Iroh were bold. They made a game of cliff diving from the highest that they could find. They’d race each other on jet skis at speeds that had them in overnight juvenile detention centers. They would have wrestled sharks if they could. And how much trouble would they get in when Azulon caught them. _

_ There came a summer when that all stopped.  _

_ It wasn’t that he’d lost his sense of adventure nor his brazen recklessness. It wasn’t that Iroh had either. And they certainly hadn’t grown tired of their high risk games and thrill seeking antics.  _

_ It was that he’d found a new thrill.  _

_ She had the most gorgeous eyes--eyes that her daughter would eventually come to share--and hair that shimmered under mid-july sun.  _

_ He’d spent that summer chasing her and hearing jests from his brother about how such a flower like her wouldn’t go for a prickly shrub like him.  _

_ His flower wasn’t so delicate.  _

_ A summer later and she’d already beaten their record cliff diving height.  _

_ Ursa was a storm, destructively alluring.  _

_ And she’d went out like a storm, went out  _ in _ a storm.  _

_ He didn’t know it then.  _

_ Then he was just another teenage boy. _

_ Then he was high on life and testosterone and the whoops and hollers of his peers.  _

_ Then he and his brother were going to conquer the world. They were already on top of it. _

_ So many summers later the world has conquered him.  _

**.oOo.**

He is in an abysmal state physically and mentally. It has been three days, three long and horrible days since his last drink. They promise him that his symptoms will begin to in another four days. 

He isn’t sure that he can last that long. 

He hasn’t seen his children since he’d but the bottle down. His mood has been too unstable. He has already seen Azula look up at him with hate, fear, and pity once. Such a cocktail of emotions is horrible to feel exuding from her. 

And Zuko. He has that same fear and hate, but Ozai senses disappointment. He is a disappointment to his own son.

He supposes that it is a helping of karma considering the rough patch the two of them had, had when Zuko first began high school. He expected Zuko to share his love of surfing. He’d done it as a boy and his father and his father before him. Zuko took interest in beach volleyball which was acceptable enough and then he’d dropped that to spend time with Katara and join a culinary club with her. 

He felt a sense of betrayal somehow, that his son so adamantly refused to carry on the family tradition of becoming the school’s surf champion. Hell, Ozai hadn’t even expected him to be a star, he just wanted the boy to join the team and carry on the legacy.

He felt a sense of loss. Loss over what could have been an opportunity for solid father-son bonding. And that feeling of loss and betrayal, the paranoid notion that he’d chosen cooking just to spite him turned to anger and disappointment. It drove a heft wedge between them. Even with Ursa there to mediate for a while, a sense of unhappiness permeated the household and only grew more palpable when a twelve year old Azula proudly declared that she’d made the middle school surf team. 

It was innocent, truly she hadn’t meant to escalate the situation. He would later find out that’d she’d joined the team solely because her friends were on it and she wanted to make time to see them when there otherwise would have been none. 

Later he’d found that she was trying to cheer  _ him  _ up, to bond with  _ him _ , and to let  _ him  _ know that the family legacy would uphold.

Zuko took it as his little sister trying to one up him. And Ursa had scolded her well and good for making things harder for her older brother. 

It was a feud that lasted the rest of the year. Father verses son, mother verses daughter, brother versus sister, and husband verses wife. The siblings had cleared the air between each other first. Zuko when he came upon his sister practicing with her friends. That level of enthusiasm couldn’t possibly have come from a place of ill will. He’d also noted that, at the time, she wasn’t even particularly good at surfing. She usually placed in the bottom three, much to her frustration. 

And thus the tension with her mother was cleared. Ozai had caught his wife consoling her after a particularly bad competition. 

After that, Ozai made a point of at least pretending to be interested in Zuko’s culinary hobby. Eventually he’d decided that it couldn’t be so bad to find a meal already made after a strenuous day of working the lighthouse. 

He misses that. He wishes that Zuko would trust him to come around a second time. But he has probably worn the boy’s trust too thin and this time Ursa is not around for damage control. 

For it he finds himself alone. Azula offers to visit him, he refuses her company. God forbid he says something in a fit of withdrawal induced rage that will drive her away too. More than that he does not want her to see him in such a pathetic state. She’d idolized him once.

She wanted to be like him…

For the life of him, he hopes that she never will be. 

Perhaps another bout of anxiety is coming on, he finds himself dreading that she will. She has lost a lover the same way he has, to nature’s merciless sea-salted hands, and addiction runs deep in her genetics. His mind carries itself away to images of her alone in the dark, disheveled and shaking with a half-empty bottle in her hand. 

He fights to put the visual out of his head. His little girl is stronger than that. He taught her to be. She has more control than that...and yet she had almost ran out to sea fueled by her grief. 

He rakes his fingers through his hair. They can dim the lights, they can hush the noise level. They can give him lots of water, they can feed him well but they can’t free him from his own thoughts. 

His head pounds and his hands shake and he is consistently on the verge of losing whatever meal they have given him. 

It should be easier with each hour that passes, but instead, he thinks that things are reaching a head. A new peak. A new intensity. Minute by minute the pounding in his head heightens until he thinks that his brain may burst--and this might be a mercy. Minute by minute the shakes grow worse until he can barely hold a fork steadily. 

He can’t move, he can’t even shift lest he upset his stomach. 

He wishes that Ursa were there to take him through it. 

Instead he has a team of nurses checking his heart rate every half an hour or so. Apparently a rapid heartbeat isn’t uncommon. Maybe if he is lucky, it will quicken so furiously that it will cease beating entirely. 

His children might be better for it. 

Hakoda and Kya watch them well...

**.oOo.**

Azula glances back at the hospital with a queasiness in her belly. Her father is angry with her. He had said that he wasn’t but he is. He is angry with her for trying to run away. He is angry at her for losing her senses and nearly doing something recklessly stupid. 

She can’t see any other reason for him so adamantly refusing to let her visit. 

She storms up to Zuko’s car, climbs in, and slams the door. 

“He still didn’t want to talk?” 

Azula shakes her head. She notices the way Zuko presses his lips together. The way his brows crease. “Lets go pick up Jet and Katara, you’ll have a lot more fun with them.  _ We’ll _ have more fun.”

Azula nods. “Sure, Zuzu.” 

“I’ll let you pick the station.”

Azula toys with the radio dial and finds the rock station. Zuko pushes the pedal a little two far down and they leave the parking lot at a fairly questionable speed. She doesn’t call him on it, she is in the mood for a little thrill. A pinch of rock and a little speed, the wind in her hair and the prospect of a night on the town doing who knows what…

Realistically she knows that they will only make it to a club parking lot. Katara isn’t the rule breaking sort. She supposes that, that is just one more reason to bring her along. They could use someone who’d talk them out of truly foolish acts of rebellion. 

They get to Jet’s house first, she climbs into the back seat next to him. He slings an arm over her shoulder and pecks her on the cheek. It is such a different feeling than the one Sokka had given her. 

This is probably a good thing. 

It would only hurt more if it felt the same. 

In her head, Jet smokes a cigarette and she has a glass of rum. In her head Zuko drives faster. In reality Jet is sucking on a twizzler and Katara offers her a juice box. Jet gives a humored snort and a remark about how he hasn’t had a juicebox since grade school. 

In reality Katara has lectured Zuko about his speed and she shares a juice box with Jet. 

Azula thinks that she is alright with this. There is something pleasantly simple about sharing a juice box and sitting on the swings of a park with an ocean view. 

For a moment she doesn’t think of her father, her losses, and the future. For a moment she feels the freespirit of her childhood. Jet chucks the juicebox, receives a rant for littering, and begins pushing her on the swing. 


	14. Wake Up

_ Her eyes had been so wide with wonder and amazement. Nothing compared to the galaxy’s glimmering spray reflected upon the open ocean. With no city lights to dim them and no bustling tourist noise to break the quiet--no rushing cars with loud basses nor honking horns and loud chatter--Azula felt like she was in space.  _

_ The water was so crystalline, so pure. The water met the sky on the horizon giving her the illusion that she was floating in a sea of stars, drifting through the cosmos in a rocketship rather than the ocean in a small sailboat.  _

_ “Dad look!” She exclaimed.  _

_ “At what?” He asked. _

_ She didn’t know.  _

_ She just started pointing everywhere, at everything. “Just look daddy!”  _

_ Her mother chuckled as she brushed the hair out of a snoring Zuko’s face. Ozai’s lips quirked into an amused half smile. _

_ “Can we go to space, daddy?”  _

_ “Why would you want to go to space when you have stars right here?” He gestures to the shimmering world around her.  _

_ That was the first time she’d seen phosphorescent fish and plankton. She leaned over the boat’s railing. Ozai quickly came to hold her steady as she dipped her curious fingers into the water. _

_ “Don’t do that, dear. There are sharks in the water.” Ursa cautioned.  _

_ But she didn’t see any sharks so she continued trying to catch one of the fish. She only managed to come up with a handful of plankton. She waited until Ursa was asleep to paint a bioluminescent mural upon her brother’s face.  _

_ That was her first experience with a boat and an open ocean. _

_ That was her first adventure. _

**.oOo.**

Ozai comes home on his birthday, that is probably a gift enough for him but Azula bough him a gift anyhow and pestered Zuko and Katara help her make a cake. 

“He doesn’t deserve one.” Zuko had grumbled the whole time. 

Azula is inclined to agree, but she has it on the table for him no less. Perhaps he won’t be so angry with her if she does something to make his birthday special. 

She sits herself on the couch and waits for the man to come home. Jet plops himself down next to her and drapes his arm over her shoulder. A half an hour goes by and she spends it by leaning her head into his chest and trying to convince herself that it is okay. That she is allowed to love Jet. That she is allowed to have love. That, should she find Sokka, he would understand. She lets Jet rub circles on her back. 

“I’m sure he isn’t angry with you, he’s just going through stuff.” Jet assures. 

She lets him think that, that is the source of her unease. It is easier to explain. “I hope that you’re right.” She mumbles. He squeezes her a little tighter. 

“How can he stay mad when you made him a whole cake?” 

**.oOo.**

To be frank, Zuko never liked Jet. He never hated the boy, but there was something about him…

Maybe it is that he is one of those pretty boys. That is probably it. Zuko never liked the type. Jet is nice enough but he thinks that he is such hot shit. Really the boy is no different than anyone else their age. He has a car. So what? He’s a smooth talker. Great for him. He’s got a good sense of fashion and can do sports. That’s fantastic. Zuko thinks that a person should have more substance than charming looks, material things, and a handful of talents. 

He looks to his sister. She’s a pretty girl, she has to be if so many of the boys and a handful of girls flock to her. She’s got talents upon talents and as far as everyone knows, she still has riches. But that’s just the thing, she has more than that; she’s fun to be around, bold and adventurous. Annoying as hell, rather judgmental, and with a pretty solid mean streak. But she means well and she’s mostly a kind girl. At the very least she is able to keep certain comments to herself.

Jet is just a pretty face. 

He isn’t like Sokka. Sokka who was a complete and unapologetic dork. Sokka who was hilarious, fun, and always had something exaggerated tall tale to tell. He’s spontaneous and rather disorganized. He is energetic. 

He  _ was  _ all of those things, Zuko reminds himself.

Sokka is nearly her opposite of Azula in everything save for intellect. For as idiotic as he acted sometimes, the boy had brains. This is probably what had drawn Azula to him. Jet is so similar to her, right down to lost parents. 

That is why Sokka fit her so much better. 

He observes the pair cozied up on the couch and his heart seizes. He never thought himself the type to play the protective brother but seeing Jet with his arms around his sister is...something doesn’t sit right. And maybe it is only because he is used to seeing her with Sokka. Maybe it is just that he isn’t used to it.

Jet hasn’t done anything bad to her. In fact, he has been supportive. Supportive and much sweeter that Zuko anticipated. Still, he can’t shake the feeling that the boy isn’t right for his sister. 

He doesn’t say it, partly because he knows Azula. He knows that she is a creature of spite and will stick her tongue right down Jet’s in front of him if he does. She has been waiting for a chance to pay him back for the one time, in middle school, that he had made out with Mai while she was trying to do homework. 

But mostly he doesn’t say anything because it is probably good for Azula to begin to move on. Having her cling to Sokka so furiously that she’d be willing to waste her college fun on some fruitless rescue mission...it isn’t healthy. He looks back at the sofa, at Azula who has turned to face Jet and slip her arms around him. This is healthy. This is one step closer to moving on. 

“She’ll be fine.” Katara says. “I know that you don’t like him much but he’s not bad.” 

“Then why did you break up with him?” 

Katara shrugs. “Promise that you won’t laugh?”

“I promise.”

“He said that he didn’t like turtles.”

“What kind of person doesn’t like turtles!?” Zuko says a little too loudly. 

“Have you ever been attacked by a family of snappers?” Jet calls from the couch. “I can show you the scars.” 

“That’s how you got those?” Azula asks, trailing her fingers over his right hand and arm. 

“Yup.” 

“Not all turtles are like that, Jet!” Zuko tries.

The boy chuckles, “I’m not taking any chances. You wanna go poke around in a snapping turtle nest, be my guest. I’ll be on the other side of the beach.”

Azula snickers and mutters something about protecting him from feral shelled beasts. 

“That’s his tragic backstory.” Katara jokes. “Anyways, we just didn’t have much in common, I guess. Pretty cliche, right?”

“A little.” Zuko laughs. 

“My point is, he’s a pretty good guy. He’s not much different than the other boys in our school.” 

“That’s the problem I think. Sokka was...he was different. And Azula’s different.” 

This time Katara laughs. “Yeah I don’t think I’ve met anyone like her before. I haven’t met anyone like you either. Your family is just weird.”

“We live in a lighthouse, what did you expect?” They both chuckle at this. 

“That’s why we’re so smart.” Azula calls from the couch.

Zuko tilts his head in confusion. 

“Because lighthouses are bright.” Azula explains. “We’re smart because we live in a lighthouse and lighthouses are bright and bright is another word for…” 

“Is it rude to break up with someone over an awful joke?” Jet grumbles. 

“If I could handle Sokka’s for as long as I did, you can handle mine.” 

“Sokka would have loved that joke.” Zuko remarks. 

“Sokka would have  _ made  _ that joke.” Katara replies. 

The new silence between them is tense. Katara squeezes his hand. “Why do so many things have to remind me of him?”

“Because he’s your brother.” Zuko replies. Again he finds himself peering at Azula, now sitting and swatting Jet with a nearby stack of papers. She is probably the larges pain in the ass he has ever had to live with. But he couldn’t imagine how hollow it would feel to lose her. He thinks of the day that they’d found her, broken and gashed up after being thrown against rocks. He wonders if it had hurt, if she ever thinks about it. She never talks about it. He thinks of her climbing onto the arbor to untangle patio lights. 

He wouldn’t have been able to handle it if she’d fallen. “You never forget someone who you were that close to.” He hadn’t known Sokka nearly as well as Katara did and it still puts an unpleasant tingle in his belly when he comes across something that triggers the memory. 

It is a hollow sort of longing that puts a flutter in his stomach a flutter that reaches his throat and has tears threatening to form. It is a somber yearning as he enters the room he’d last talked with Sokka in, as he visualizes Sokka as he’d last seen him. As he tries to latch onto that memory and make a physical manifestation of it. At the very least he tries to cling to it so that it doesn’t slip. It like being in a room with a phantom. 

Memories are ghosts. 

“You can’t forget.” He repeats. “I don’t think that you want to either. I don’t. Azula doesn’t.”

He hears Katara swallow, but before they can get any further, Ozai opens the door. The man looks as hollow as Katara probably feels when thinking about Sokka. Mostly he is put together, clean shaven--for once--and with his hair neatly styled. But his clothing is wrinkled, his cheeks are sunken, and he has bags under his eyes. 

“What’s this?” Ozai grumbles. “I told you that I was coming home from the hospital and you bring  _ guests  _ over?”

Zuko catches Azula visibly swallow and goes tense. Just like that he recalls that their father doesn’t know about Jet yet. Jet who tightens his grip protectively around Azula. And just like that, Zuko’s opinion of him changes rather drastically. 

Azula pulls out of his grip. 

“Tell them to go home.” Ozai says simply. 

“Tell them to go home!?” Zuko gets to his feet. “We did this for--”

Azula holds up a hand. He can tell that her optimism is fading fast. “I thought that it would be a nice surprise to…” she gestures to the cake. “I can’t cook so I asked Katara to help.”

“And him?” Ozai nods to Jet. 

She shifts uncomfortably. 

Zuko’s stomach nearly gives when Jet opens his mouth. “I’m Jet, I’m on Azula’s surf team, remember?”

“I recall.” Ozai answers stiffly. “But that doesn’t tell me what you are doing here.”

Jets simply slips his arm around Azula’s waist and tugs her closer. 

“I want them out, Azula.” 

“But, I…”

“Out.” He commands more firmly. 

Azula bunches her fists. Zuko knows what she is going to do before Ozai does. He praises her for her wit but, lord he wishes that she wouldn’t. 

“Fine.” 

**.oOo.**

The lighthouse door slams. 

It takes a moment for that Jet boy to react but he hastily follows her out.

Ozai sighs. It is long and drawn, he rubs a hand over his face, feeling thoroughly drained. He looks from the doorway to the birthday cake on the table. It is a nice sentiment, but he is not in a festive mood. She means well, they all mean well, but it might be too soon. 

“We made all of this to cheer you up and you make us feel like shit!” Zuko accuses. Zuko seldom raises his voice at him. Much less cusses at him. “You make Azula feel…” 

Ozai tries to tune his son out. 

“She thinks that you hate her!” Zuko scowls. “You know that right? She was trying to give you a good birthday because she knows that you’re having a hard time.”

Katara links her arm around Zuko and clutches him tightly. Ozai wonders if he is frightening her. He must be. “Zuko, I am your father you will not speak to--”

“No. You aren’t.” Zuko hisses. “Azula and I lost both of our parents that night.” He turns to his girlfriend. “Come on, lets go find Azula and Jet.” 

Katara nods, “I’m worried about her, Zuko.”

Somehow the girl’s comment unsettled him more deeply than anything Zuko had said. With a second slam he is alone in the lighthouse. He finds a seat at the table in front of his birthday cake. 

There is no one left to eat it with.

Also in front of him is a handmade card. ‘Welcome home, congratulations, and happy birthday, father.’ She hadn’t left anything out and that was only the cover page. He is home, but his birthday isn’t happy and he doesn’t feel like there is anything worth congratulating.

It is his own fault.

He’d just gotten clean and he is already ready for his next drink. 

He opens the fridge and curses Azula for her forethought. She’d gotten rid of all of it. He supposes that he has ingrained tough love into her. 

He should probably give her space, let her run off to Katara’s house or Jet’s. But he thinks that this time, if he allows the problem to fester, he will lose her. He will lose both of his children. 

He rakes his fingers through his hairline and heads for the door. He reaches it and hesitates. He sits back at the table. 


	15. Strawberry Sunscreen

_ She had been there when her mother died. She had been there when their sunny day turned so abruptly sour. When the clouds unleashed a big one without warning. It was just like the most recent storm, the news anchors had failed to adequately report the incoming storm and so they, alongside, several other families had gotten caught in it.  _

_ The day had been so kind and promising. Ursa packed their lunch, three grilled hot dogs that Ozai had left for them before heading off to help out at the marina, a bag of hotdog buns, a bowl of watermelon, and several water bottles. Zuko, newly sixteen, insisted that they bring some of the leftover cake too.  _

_ Ursa had caved and they were on their way out for a day of shell hunting and tubing. Azula couldn’t have been more pumped, she knew that she would come out bruised and sore, she always did in her successful efforts to outlast Zuko. In doing so, she had taken some rather hard falls. She very vividly remembers a summer ago when they’re competition got particularly heated. Both she and Zuko were clinging on for the sake of their pride. Typically they could last a good ten minutes of Ursa speeding over the waves before a good bump would dislodge one of them. They were on minute twelve. Her hands were cramped and achy from clenching the tube’s nylon handles for so long. But Zuzu had still been clinging and she would too.  _

_ He let go first. She found out why soon enough.  _

_ He informed her later that she had been tossed several feet into the air and did several backflips both before and after hitting the water. It had knocked the wind out of her and her entire body ached for days.  _

_ But she had won.  _

_ The sky was so blue. The clouds were fluffy and white and the seagulls circled and squabbled over dropped french fries. Nobody seemed to have noticed when they suddenly disappeared. _

_ Maybe if they had, they would have known something in the air was amiss.  _

_ But everyone remained, a group of college kids at a volleyball net, a family building sandcastles, a different family departing with fishing poles at the ready, and a couple and their dog throwing a frisbee.  _

_ Ursa arranged their lunch and as they ate, she inquired about how Azula was enjoying her first year of high school so far. She had said that she was only a month in and needed more time to decide, but that she loved her new surf team so far. It was much more serious and competition driven.  _

_ And then Zuko got to talk about how well his cooking was improving. _

_ She remembers the smell of sea and barbeque in the air as she helped Ursa load the rest of their shells into the back of the car. She remembers the smell of the sunscreen that Ursa sprayed on her when she refused to do it herself. She remembers how her mother too smelled of sunscreen but also faintly of strawberry perfume.  _

_ Strawberry sunscreen, still lingers in her mind. _

_ Strawberry sunscreen is what she remembers most about her mother.  _

_ She tries to focus on strawberry sunscreen instead of strawberry colored blood mixing with seafoam.  _

_ They had just secured the innertube, a bright orange and blue thing with a company logo and name plastered in bright red on the front. The air seemed electrified, and in retrospect, maybe Azula should have said something.  _

_ But she hadn’t and they were well into the ocean a crackle of lightning upset the waves.  _

_ It happened so unprocessablely fast.  _

_ One minute there was sun and in an instant there was an impenetrable curtain of rain. How quickly fluffy and white had turned to wispy and concrete.  _

_ They abandoned their tube and hurried into the boat. Her heart had never raced faster and she thanked every higher power there was that she had Zuko had been so furiously competitive. They probably wouldn’t have had the ability to cling on for so long otherwise. Even still she was shaking by the time Ursa managed to reel them in.  _

_ There was no time for relief, she helped her mother navigate while Zuko helped hold her steady. Azula could see the shore. She could also see a boat turn over, spilling several fishing poles.  _

_ She hadn’t known it then, but she would later find out that a girl in her class named Yue and her family had perished. _

_ She zeroed in on the shore and guided her mother around rocks and debris. They were going to make it, they were going to… _

_ She hadn’t spotted the reef on time.  _

_ She underestimated the tides.  _

_ The tides pulled them right into the reef and shredded the bottom of their boat. They were going down and fast. Lifejackets were no match for such ruthless tides. She saw Zuko go overboard first. The same wave took her mother. She had room in her arms for one of them.  _

_ She emerged from the water with her legs and arms shredded. Blades of coral proved to be just as merciless as the tides. The sensation was searing and blood trickled down her arms and legs. She felt so dizzy and weak. She couldn’t tell how much of the blood was hers and how much was Zuzu’s. _

_ She dragged him to the shore and scanned the water for her mother. The woman was fighting the waves, and for a moment, Azula thought that she would make it. Maybe she would have if their boat hadn’t… _

_ Azula’s memory goes blank there, she just remembers seeing blood on the seafoam.  _

_ Blood like strawberries and foam like sunscreen.  _

_ She never did tell Zuzu that she had to choose between he and their mother. She never told father. _

**.oOo.**

He writes the letter out, it is sloppy with haste, but he thinks that it is to the point. It will probably speak for him better than he can. He bunches it up in his hand and shoves it into his pocket, alongside his first AA chip.

He tries the beach first. He finds Zuko and Katara, he hears them calling out for Azula but the girl is nowhere in sight. Nor does he spot Jet. It occurs to him that they are looking in the wrong place. Of course she won’t be on the beach, not as furious and upset as she is. His second guess is the cliffside, but he would have seen her already. Those are her two usual spots. 

There is one other. 

Ozai considers taking the car, it would be alot faster but he thinks that walking is the way to go. He isn’t one to place his bets on gut instincts, that is what Iroh does. This time he does though, he walks for several miles. Walks until his already spent and exhausted body threatens to give. What a horrid way to spend his birthday. It is his own fault, he reminds himself. 

He takes a deep breath and resumes his walk until he comes upon a rickety old park. It had been a dilapidated wooden accident waiting to happen when Azula was just a child, now it is completely crumbled. The only thing left standing is a rusty old merry-go-round, the only metal structure at the park. The shoreline that it is built on is a cluttered mess of driftwood, broken shells, and pollution; glass bottles, both broken and intact, deflated beach balls, discarded plastic shovels, forgotten goggles now fogged with algae, and empty beer cans. 

It smells potently of dead fish and runoff. Ozai isn’t sure why she still wanders over here, but he does find her. She is perched upon a structurally unsound picnic table. Jet stands next to her, likely aware that any more weight will collapse the rotting table. He has a hand on her back and is rubbing ever so tentatively while she rather openly vents. 

Jet notices him first. “She doesn’t wanna talk to you, old man!” He brazenly declares. 

Ozai opens his mouth to berate the boy for his brash disrespect. Instead he says, “no talking involved, just give this to her.” He leaves no opening for the boy to decline. He isn’t sure if he should stand here and wait as she reads it or if he should begin making his way back to the lighthouse and hope for the best. 

He stands with his arms folded while he waits for Jet to hand his daughter the note. He never drops his glare as he passes it off. Azula looks briefly at him before unfolding the note. 

He tries to read her expression as her eyes follow the lines. She sets the note aside and presses her lips together. Her brows crease and her eyes narrow, she fixes them straight on the crashing waves in front of her. 

Ozai waits. 

She is drawing the minute out. 

**.oOo.**

Azula isn’t quiet sure how to take it. She can’t recall a time when her father has ever apologized to her--or anyone for that matter--vocally or otherwise. She fidgets with the note for a moment. It is very short and concise, a little lacking, but it is an apology no less. 

An apology and a thank you. She rubs her lips against one another and squeezes Jet’s hand harder. “Why?” She asks at last.

“Because,” he answers. “I don’t want to lose you too.”

“No.” She says. “If you appreciate what I tried to do for you then  _ why _ ? Why did you get angry with me? Why were you angry with me  _ before _ .”

“Before?”

“You wouldn’t let me visit you. It’s because I tried to leave, isn’t it?”

The statement seems to take ten years off of his life. Suddenly he looks so tired. “I wouldn’t let you visit me because there are some things that you don’t need to see. You already saw your mother…” he trails off. 

Her stomach knots all over again. 

“I wasn’t angry with you.” He says again. “I’m not angry with you.” 

“Then why did you…”

He rubs his hands over his face. “I just wasn’t expecting company, Azula. You don’t like to be seen before you’ve had a chance to fix your hair and makeup.” He tries. 

It is a fair point. Even still… “I thought that it would be a nice surprise. You know Katara and I thought that you would want to meet…” She trails off, unsure if this is a good time. 

“Your boyfriend?” Ozai guesses. She opens her mouth but he answers before she can ask, “I can’t imagine that he would be so bold if you were just a friend.” 

Jet gives a slight chuckle. 

Azula crosses her arms. 

“Come home with me. We will gather your brother and Katara and have that cake. It would be a shame if you wasted all of that time cooking for nothing, yes?”

**.oOo.** **  
  
**

Azula nods. That slight pout doesn’t leave her face. She has grown so much, in the last two years. But there are still moments, still small flashes when he can see that she is only a child. “You are getting the smallest piece though.” 

He rolls his eyes but he will let her have this one, it is fair enough all things considered. 

She continues. “Cake is for grateful fathers.” This gets another chuckle out of Jet. 

But he is grateful, and not just for the cake. He is thankful that she won’t walk the same path that he has. She is resilient--he can’t help but stare at the scars on her legs, she has too many of them for a girl so young. She is strong, maybe stronger than he is. And she is moving on, just as she had done with her mother. 

“Your brother is going to be a bit harder to convince.” 

Azula shakes her head, “he just doesn’t think that you’re trying. I think that he’ll come around when I tell him that you walked all of this way just to hand me a note.” She holds up her cellphone. “It was on the whole time.”

Ozai sighs, he always lets his temper drive out clear thinking. For once that is probably better. “Would that have been as effective?”

Azula thinks for a moment before shaking her head again. “You walked all that way just for me.” She flashes him a smug smile.

“That or he really wants some cake.” Jet comments with a shrug. 

“He wants the cake because  _ I _ made it.”

“ _ We _ made it.”

“It was  _ my _ idea!”

At least he can take comfort in that he hadn’t irreparably broken her mood. He can take comfort in that he hasn’t lost his girl. 


	16. Shrimp & Dolphin

The waves lick gently at the side of their boat. It isn’t an awful vessel and it will serve its purpose. Azula never had any love for that ex-pirate bartender, but he has done them well with this ship. Its paint job is somewhat aged, off color in most places and it has a few dents from the recent storm. But the engine is not only intact and in perfect condition but it is also powerful. For both aesthetic and function should, the motor give out, it is adorned with a set of well maintained sails and--Azula rolls her eyes--a jolly roger flag.

She runs through a checklist in her head as she checks her suitcase for a third time. She has several changes of clothes and for a range of weather conditions, sweltering heat, a light rain, a heavy storm, and (though she has yet to feel a cold day) she has a shirt and pair of pants for that. She has a hairbrush, toothbrush, toothpaste, and other hygiene essentials. She has a knife, matches, her guide books, compasses and other navigation tools should the GPS fail, a cellphone, and a survival kit just in case. If Sokka could go missing, so could they. 

For leisure she has packed a healthy helping of books, notebooks and pencils. They are neatly tucked away with a scrapbook Ursa had made for her, the stuffed starfish that Sokka had messily handmade for her, and the clownfish that she had made for him. It was in much better condition when she’d handed it to him. It is now tattered in places and the colors have faded. It still smells like him, she doesn’t sleep very close to it because she doesn’t want her own scent to drive out Sokka’s. She will give it to him when she finds him.

She goes through the boat’s fridge and drawers, making sure that there is enough to last them at least a month. She makes sure that there is an emergency supply of canned goods and bottled waters. 

The life jackets are intact and there are more than enough of them. 

She checks to make sure certain things aren’t there. Holes, broken parts, and Ozai’s alcohol stash. She is grateful that he hasn’t tried to sneak even a bottle on. It will be easier for him to stay sober on a boat with no way to acquire a bottle. 

Azula isn’t particularly worried about the journey, now that it is no longer an impulse journey. Mostly, the loose ends have all been tied. Some of them had tied themselves. Namely the resuming of classes--the school had taken on a considerable amount of damage during the hurricane, rendering it unsafe to open until later in the autumn. That would give her at least an extra month or two of time on the open ocean. 

She and Zuko spent the rest of July helping Katara, Kya, and Hakoda to clear and repair what remained of the storm damage. That was the deal, Katara would have to put extra time into helping ready the restaurant for opening if she wanted to embark on their at sea adventure. Mostly this consisted of finding a good waitress to hire for while she was away.

And as she and Zuko began securing new shingles to the roof and wooden panels for the walls, construction workers put a tireless effort into rebuilding the rest of the boardwalk. By the end of July the boardwalk was finished and so was La-bsters. Not only does it have a new, bright red roof, but they’d taken the opportunity to give it a well overdue new paint job, white for the outside walls and dark blue for the doors and window shutters. The interior was painted to look like an ocean, mostly teal blue with a border of dark blue to represent waves. They fixed more white wood panels upon the walls to give it an extra decorative flare. From the ceiling they draped fishing nets and discarded buoy strands. On the walls they positioned ship wheels, oars, and old sailor’s logs.

It isn’t the same as it was, but it is lovely in its own regard. It is lovely in that they all shaped it together. If they find Sokka, he will be in for a surprise. If they don’t, she supposes that it is just one more change that she will have to get used to on her own. 

Azula managed to stop by Mai’s jewelry shop too. Though it is more of a stall at the moment. Behind the stall, a new shop is in its early development stages; it is roped off with caution tape and is still just a framework outline of what it will become. 

Katara had asked Mai to check on her parents for her every now and again. Mai had nodded and offered them parting gifts; shark tooth necklaces for she and Zuko and a wooden hibiscus for Katara. TyLee had given them particularly long and tight hugs and offered a few pointers on how to repair boat breakdowns as well as one of her family’s manuels. 

The last time that Azula got to see the both of them before her departure was at the surf competition. She hadn’t managed to pull off a snap but she had gotten the opportunity for another tube ride. The only one of the day.

She likes to think that the luck of catching the perfect wave during the competition would carry over. She likes to think that her trophy is a sign of a greater victory to come. She had positioned the trophy on her dresser next to the pictures of she and her surf team and a cluster of decorative pearls and glass bubbles. 

Azula comes back from her thoughts as emerges from the boat, it is nearly noon and the sun is inching towards its highest point. She shields her eyes with her hand and scans the beach for the others. “Hi, Azula.” Katara greets. She stands hand in hand with Zuko. Ozai lingers behind them. 

“Is everything ready?” Ozai asks. 

She nods, “though it can’t hurt to double check everything.” Granted, his inspection would make it a quadruple check. 

“I trust you.” He gives her shoulder two firm pats before making his way to the ship deck. 

“Are we ready to go?” Zuko asks.    
  


“Just about.” Azula replies, there is still one thing left.

It takes him a few minutes but she finally sees a figure crossing the sand. She hops down from the boat and and greets Jet. “I’m glad that you are able to make it.”

He rubs the back of his head. “Eh, this summer was kind of boring anyways. I think that a high seas adventure will be funner than another one of Chan’s generic house parties...not that those are boring or anything…” He trails off. 

“Yes, well this will be…” she isn’t sure what it will be, at least for him. For her she it will be closure and, perhaps, liberation. 

Jet slides an arm around her and cups her cheek in the other hand. “It’ll be good to spend some quality time with you.”

Azula rolls her eyes. “You do realize that my father will be in the cabin over, right?”

“Right.” He confirms.

“We should depart before the mid-day tourist traffic arrives.” Ozai, not so patiently, calls. She takes Jet’s hand and leads him onto the boat. Ozai and Zuko raise the anchor as she and Katara help Jet settle in. 

“Father says that you will be rooming with he and Zuzu so that he can ‘keep an eye on you’. But Katara and I are…” she opens a door to the adjoining room, “right over here.” 

He gives her a quick thumbs up. “I think that I can deal with that.” She hears his suitcases thud on the floor.

“I am going to make myself comfortable.” Azula gestures to her own sleeping quarters. 

**.oOo.**

She hasn’t had dinner on the deck of a ship in ages. It is rather pleasant, she had almost forgotten how much she enjoys it. It is that time of the evening when the temperature cools to the point of comfort. That time of evening when small gusts flutter the table cloth. It is no five star dinner, a plate of slightly overcooked shrimp and a side of mashed potatoes. But her father had made it and it has been so long since he has cooked for she and Zuko so she can ignore the burned spots. 

It is rather easy to ignore them while peering over the railing and watching a family of dolphins leap from the water. She counts three of them, one adult and two babies. 

“They’re so cute!” Katara exclaims. “I already have names for them.”

“Of course you do.” Zuko rolls his eyes. 

“What are they?” Jet asks. 

“That one is Zuko.” She points at the smallest one. “That one is Ozai.” Perhaps Azula has misgauged the direction of her finger, because she seems to be pointing at the other baby. “And the big one is Azula’s Ego.” 

There is a gurgle and a cough as Zuko nearly chokes on his soda laughing. “Geez, at least wait until I’m done drinking.” 

Azula fixes her with a dull expression. “You know that, that was funny.” Jet remarks. It kind of was but she won’t be admitting it. 

The dolphins keep pace with their boat for a while before slipping back beneath the waves. She catches the faintest shimmer of black before they make it completely out of sight. She pops another bite of shrimp into her mouth and takes in the feeling of the ocean breeze on her cheeks. She fixes her sunglasses, not that she will be needing them much longer and rests her hand atop Jet’s. 

“No romance at the dinner table.” Ozai grumbles. “That means the two of you.” He nods at Katara and Zuko.

She almost makes a joke about all of the times when she and Zuzu had to witness him peck mother on the cheek over plates of lobster. Decidedly, he isn’t ready for that sort of banter. She isn’t sure that he ever will be. Instead she whispers something to Jet. 

Jet picks up his two remaining pieces of shrimp. He doesn’t do it quite as well as Sokka would have, but just like that they were hearing an enthralling tale of forbidden love between two shrimp. The story ended with the both of them getting eaten by a shark. Jet is the shark. 

A sand shark. 

Her sand shark?

Ozai looks towards the setting sun. 

Azula and Jet steal a quick kiss. 

Her father says, “I saw that, that was a test.” 

They all have a good chuckle. 

She thinks that it is the most normal. The most happy that she has felt in a very long time.


	17. The Kindness Of Waves

The ocean is kinder to Azula than she expected. It might be the sense of freedom and adventure that she craves or possibly the feeling of getting away from the past. It feels better. She feels better. She can’t entirely shake the feeling of sullenness that creep in every now and again, mostly at night as she lies in her cabin, but she still feels like some weight has been lifted from her shoulders.

She sits on the deck for the longest time, watching the waves roll by and scanning the waters for any sign of life, a familiar face on a stalled or damaged boat, possibly on a thin strip of debris. She holds a book and reads a page every now and again.

She sets her book aside and reapplies her sunscreen. Preferring fresh air to the antique but stale air of the lighthouse, she has always been rather tan. Her excessive amount of time spent on deck, has deepened her complexion that much further.

She can’t see anything for miles so she puts her book aside and wanders over to the steering wheel. Her father stands behind it, face to the sun and the wind. The open ocean seems to be treating him rather well too, his skin is just as tanned and he has taken to grooming his beard and hair again, both of which flutter almost absurdly majestically in the breeze.

Azula finds herself faintly humored, he hasn’t yet taken the braids out of his beard. The night prior, Katara had declared that they needed to get pirate looks, that Sokka would have brought pirate hats and eye patches along if he had planned this trip. By the end of the night they all had the most awful improvised eye patches and bandanas. And Jet had very boldly vowed to give Ozai the most swashbuckling beard on the high seas. 

She had muttered something about him becoming a hardened pirate and giving  Khozen a little competition. Ozai hadn’t particularly fancied that idea, citing poor hygiene as the chief reason for his objection to the lifestyle. 

They have been sailing for a week or so and have made several stops on little islands and land masses. Most of them were unoccupied, another handful boasted single houses on privatized land. They’d knocked on several doors and inquired about Sokka. It had been as futile as Azula had anticipated. Though it wasn’t an absolute waste, the third house that they came by was home to a grumpy old woman and her cheerful husband. 

Much to the woman’s annoyance, the man invited them in for lunch. Azula doesn’t have a taste for pineapples served with dishes that otherwise had no fruits. Pineapple on pizza is an absolute no. She found herself of the same opinion when the old couple served it with shrimp and rice. She took to eating only pineapple and the buns they’d meant as an appetizer. Katara on the other hand was delighted, doubly so to have a new recipe for La-bsters. She vowed to name it after the old couple. 

The old woman was adamant that Katara name it after her cat. And so La-bsters will soon have a dish called Miyuki’s meal.

She can’t say that she will forget that night, the taste of pineapple and shrimp will always haunt her nightmares and she has a feeling that Zuko won’t be deleting the video of her trying it any time soon. It is just as well, she knows that when Sokka sees it... _ if _ , she corrects herself. If Sokka sees it, he will get a kick out of it.

“I can take the wheel.” Azula offers. “Go get some water, father.” 

He pats her back, “I’ll be back in a moment.” His voice is steadier, livelier and his eyes aren’t so tired. She isn’t entirely sure if he has any lingering withdrawal symptoms, if he does, he doesn’t show them. He does know, however, that he still has cravings. He is irritable on those days and they give him space. 

On those days he lurks below deck in the cabin by himself, refuting all offers for company. On those days she does most of the steering and Katara keeps watch for her. Zuko fills in for her when she needs a break. And Jet, though he doesn’t steer the boat, being as he has a horrid sense of direction, does most of the cleaning and ship repairs. Though she finds that his emotional support is the most helpful. 

Ozai remerges on the deck with two water bottles. He holds one out for her. “Thank you, father.” 

He nods and crosses his arms as he peers towards the horizon. His face stern. 

“What’s wrong?” 

He presses his lips together. “We’re going to need to find a place to port. The weather forecasts are calling for a storm.” 

“How bad is it going to be?”

“It isn’t supposed to be a hurricane, but they advise that boats be kept out of the water if possible.”

Azula nods, “and when is it supposed to hit?”

“As of now, they are predicting early tomorrow morning. They say that it could break in the afternoon. I would prepare for an early morning storm.” 

Azula nods. For a time they are quiet. “Father?” She looks up.

“Yes?” 

“How are you holding up?” 

For the briefest moment his lip quirks up. He holds up his AA chip, it glints gold. “I’ll have my purple chip by the end of your journey.” 

She doesn’t think that it is just her journey. It was her idea, yes. But all five of them are on it and for their own different reasons. For their own ideas of closure. She wants to say that her father is on two of them simultaneously. “You’ll make it to your bronze chip, right?” A year is a long time, she is aware. 

His firm grip his back on her shoulder. “I hope so.” He gives it a squeeze. 

“Mom would be proud.” Zuko leans in the doorway. “She wouldn’t want you to drink because of her.” 

“I’ll leave you two alone.” She would like some time with Jet anyhow. 

**.oOo.**

Zuko’s stomach is tying itself in knots. He has been keeping his distance from his father, but it is time to confront the man. If for no other reason than to keep Azula happy. She loves their father dearly. And for as much as she insists that she doesn’t care, he is certain that having their family rift apart would break her. 

“I like to think so.” Ozai agrees. He is silent for a very long time. Zuko doesn’t know what to fill the silence with. 

“Believe it or not, I want Azula to be proud too.” Another long pause. “And you.” 

Zuko isn’t sure what emotion comes over him exactly. Perhaps a sense of empowerment or satisfaction. It is now his turn, his turn to yell about disappointments and expectations. It would be so easy. So easy to note how funny it is that Ozai is the family disappointment, not him. 

He very nearly does. 

At the last moment he recalls just how easy it would be to cause his father to drink again. He also recalls that they are on a beverage free boat so no opportunity would arise. Instead he says, “I’m trying to be proud.” 

“But…” Ozai prompts.

Zuko shakes his head. “I’m still angry.” He replies. “About the drinking, about how you dragged Azula down the beach, about how you left  _ us  _ to handle  _ your  _ job... about how you used to call me a disappointment.”

Ozai gives a long exhale. “We never really settled that did we?”

“No.” Zuko shakes his head. “I still don’t know if you’re proud of me. Azula says that you are. She said that you found my cooking and baking helpful. But  _ you  _ never said it.”

“Zuko, I didn’t think that I had to.”

He almost grows teary eyed. “You did.” 

Ozai seems to nod and says nothing more. 

“Can you make me proud too? Can you  _ really  _ try?” 

“I’m really trying now.” Ozai swears. 

Zuko is still skeptical. 

“Come here for a minute.” He calls to Jet. “You, steer the ship.” He and Azula make their way over.

Jet gives a thumbs up. Just as they are disappearing below deck, Zuko hears, “hey Katara, come steer the ship for a moment!”

Ozai leads him into the kitchen. He pulled a loose board from the wall and comes out with an unopened bottle.

“You’re kidding!?” Zuko scowls. “Azula is…”

“Not going to know.” Ozai finishes. 

“You’ve been…” 

Ozai shakes his head. “This is the only one I brought aboard...just in case.” 

“Why would you show me that?”

“Follow me.” He motions for Zuko to follow him back on deck. He gives it a quick scan, presumably for Azula. Finding the coast clear, he fully appears on deck. He reaches the bow.

“Father, what’s that?” 

Zuko’s stomach knots, he can only imagine how tense Ozai is. But the man seems rather relaxed. He holds up the bottle and throws it overboard. “I was saving it just in case.” He pauses. “I’ve always told the two of you to tough it out and forget the baby steps…”

“That was the second manliest thing I’ve seen all year!” Jet declares. 

“What was the first?” Zuko asks, desperate to shake away the last remaining vestiges of anxiety.

“Toph doing bench presses.” 

Ozai rolls his eyes. “You kids do the strangest things.”

**.oOo.**

Azula goes to bed feeling both hopeful and uneasy. It has been a good day, a soothing one. Her father seems well, better than he has been in a very long while. She feels as though they are beginning to close the gap. 

But Jet...

The day with him had gone well. Perfectly in fact. 

She almost wishes that it hadn’t. She almost wishes that he would do something to piss her off, to break her heart, anything. But he hasn’t, he has only been patient and supportive. 

She puts her head on the pillow, clasps her hands over her middle, and fixes her eyes on the ceiling as she takes in the gentle rocking of the boat. In shifts they are on the lookout for storm clouds and a safe place to dock. She ought to relieve Zuzu and take a second shift, she doesn’t think that she will be sleeping anyways, regardless of the soft ambiance of the waves. 

Her head is whirring with possible scenarios and countless conflicting thoughts. Jet isn’t Sokka. Not by any means, but he suits her in a way that Sokka doesn’t. They have more things in common. And yet she craved the clash that she and Sokka had--it was fun. 

She finds that she is very easily able to picture herself curled up with Jet right now. Can picture herself doing so time and time again. Just as much, she can vividly see herself holding Sokka tighter than ever on the way home. Of course this image is tainted with a knowingness that Jet will be lonely in the cabin over. 

Azula wishes that he will do something to make her hate him. To make it easier for her to break things off. A much deeper and darker part of her, hopes that they don’t find Sokka. This part of her is mercifully small, more or less an intrusive thought that she casts aside as soon as it arises. 

She just wonders what she would tell Jet if they do find Sokka…

Or what she would tell Sokka…

Her mind wanders further and she finds herself fretting that she might not get to decide anything at all. That when she tells him about Jet, he will make up her mind for her. She reminds herself that the odds of finding him are slim to none. That she should just get some sleep instead of fretting over something that might not come to pass at all. 

But that is not how her mind operates. She is a girl of plans and she spends the night running through scenario after scenario. Script after script until dawn breaks and Zuko cusses loudly. 

She hears a rumble of thunder. 


	18. A Pearl On The Waves

_ There are many rumors surrounding Sea Candle Lighthouse; hauntings, sirens, and beasts that come on the gales to name a few. Azula has even heard that the ghosts have been there before the lighthouse was constructed.  _

_ She has lived there her whole life and she hasn’t seen one phantom. _

_ But she and Zuko made a game of it. They earned social points with peers by inviting them to their ‘creepy’ lighthouse during softly stormy nights. Nights when the sea howls and throws tempestuous fits.  _

_ It was on such a night that she’d truly gotten to know Chan and Ruon-Jian. Their parents had a date night at a rather upscale restaurant across town, a date night that was extended until the storm could pass. And then extended once more when the roads closed at the hands of flooding. The storm itself hadn’t been notably bad, so she and Zuko invited company to spend the night. Nevermind the scoldings that they would get later.  _

_ Within the hour ten people had turned up; Mai, TyLee, Sokka, Katara, Aang, Toph, Jet, Chan, Ruon, and Chan’s older sister. And a half an hour after that, several more people turned up, neither she nor Zuko knew them. Azula recognized three of them from her first hour class and Zuko said he’d seen the other two in the cafeteria. They were nice enough company but Azula wishes that Chan would have asked before prattling to others about a small get together.  _

_ Of course nearly everyone in their school had been fighting for a chance to spend the night inside the haunted lighthouse. She vividly recalls a rather solid month of her freshman year being interrogated over rumors that she’d been posesseed. She isn’t sure that they have quite let go of that of that one. She also vividly recalls complaining to Mai about it and having the girl shrug and say, “welcome to the club, Azula.”  _

_ So it was that five fortunate strangers assembled on the floor playing card and board games with them. Azula can’t remember their names. One of them might have been Jin, maybe Jing?  _

_ It was Mai who swapped the tiresome monopoly board for an ouija board. Azula cracked a smile. Mai was always essential to the atmosphere of the Sea Candle sleepovers. Azula and Zuko wrote the stories and Mai expertly narrated them under the flickering orange glow of candlelight. On this occasion the storm hadn’t gotten around to knocking out the power so she and Zuko had to do the honors.  _

_ The rain continued to pour down ceaselessly as Mai began the story. It was a story from before the lighthouse had been constructed, a tale of a man and his wife. “There was a man and his wife. The wife always wore a pearl pendant on a silver chain.” She had begun as a rumble of thunder rattled the lighthouse and died away. “The couple had made a habit of climbing up to the very highest point of the cliff and watching the ships pass by. They didn’t like to go in the daytime though because there were too many people and the husband was a shy man.” _

_ Toph had yawned.  _

_ “One night they went walking. It was raining.” _

_ “Of course it was storming, it’s always storming.” Toph muttered. _

_ “Shut up Toph, I’m trying to listen!” Sokka shushed.  _

_ Unperturbed by their bickering, Mai had continued. “It wasn’t storming. It was a light misty rain. But there was fog and a lot of it. By the time they reached the top of the cliffs, the fog thickened until you could barely see in front of you. They stayed there a while even though there were no ships to watch, sometimes they just liked to enjoy a night alone on the cliffs. The sound of the rain on the water was nice enough.” She paused before continuing in her droning monotone. A monotone that was truly made for ghost stories, if Azula must say. “But they did see a ship after all. It was worn down and beaten like it just rose up from the bottom of a trench. Its sails didn’t move in the breeze. As the couple stared at at a voice called out, ‘mama, papa, I can’t find my way home.’ The couple looked at one another. It was the voice of their son. Their long lost son. ‘Mama, papa, I can’t see, it’s too dark’. And so, upon these cliffs, they built a light. One that can be seen for miles in hopes that their lost son would make his way home. That is the first ghost to haunt the Sea Candle lighthouse.”  _

_ The story was as cheesy as any, but it had their classmates talking for weeks after a night of Chan, Ruon, and her other unfamiliar classmates swearing up and down that they could hear the boy crying for his parents between rolls of thunder.  _

_ She, Zuzu, Mai, and TyLee spent the night snickering as Toph and Sokka fervently tried to debunk the claims of Chan and his posse. Katara and Jet had nothing to do with it at all, declaring that to have a  _ sleep _ over you should make  _ sleep  _ one of the activities.  _

_ It was all in good fun. _

_ Only once could Azula swear that she’d seen a spirit.  _

_ Only once when she looked out the window to see her mother wandering home as she would on an ordinary day.  _

_ Only once and never again. _

**.oOo.**

  
  


The storm broke suddenly. Suddenly and much earlier than anticipated. Such seems to be a recurring theme in her life. She wishes that, for once, a storm would arrive behind schedule as opposed to ahead of it. 

Azula rubs her eyes and hustles on deck to see Ozai and Zuko struggling with a sail that had broken loose. Lord, they couldn’t afford to lose a sail. But, she notes with building horror, they couldn’t afford to leave the wheel unattended. Her stomach pangs as adrenaline cuts through her sleep deprived mind. She makes a beeline for the wheel, leaping over a table that has been upturned and rolled by the perilous rocking of the ship. 

She catches sight of Katara as she wraps her hands around the wheel’s spokes. Azula runs through the details in her sailing manuals. She truly hopes that she is remembering correctly as she points the bow of her ship towards the waves.

Ozai catches her eyes and his own seem to fill with relief in seeing that the wheel is now attended. 

“Zuko, I am going to open the storm sails!” He calls over the roaring wind and spraying waves. “I need you to keep control over the broken sail.” 

She can’t hear Zuko’s reply. 

The rain is beating brutally against her face, each drop giving her the feeling of being pelted with pebbles. She fights against a wheel that would rather do anything but keep the boat facing the waves. She finds herself constantly blowing streams of rainwater out of her mouth, but more comes to fill it almost immediately. And her hair, she wishes that she had chopped it off or at least tied it back before embarking. For it now whips about and obscures her vision until rainwater plasters it uncomfortably to her cheeks and forehead.

She finds herself breathless and surprised at just how much exertion it is taking just to hold the wheel steady, much less push it in the opposite direction when a particularly powerful wave knocks it out of place. 

“Shit!” Jet hollars, finally emerging. He runs up to her and she waves him off. 

“Zuzu…” she huffs. “Go help...Zuzu.” She nods her head in his direction. The flapping sail is fighting him with more vigor than the wheel is fighting her. 

Jet nods and rushes to the sail. Azula’s heart seizes, she can’t see her father. The ship, as far as former pirate ships go, isn’t large. She should see him scaling the mast. Her attention is pulled to a sharp cry. The ship jolts and Katara is knocked off of her feet. She and Zuko both. With Zuko on the floor and sliding, the sail snaps and blows away completely. Jet lets go just on time to avoid going with it. 

Azula has no time to be relieved over that. “Jet!” She hollers. As soon as he makes it to the wheel she passes it off to him with hurried instructions. This leaves her with no time to answer, “where are you going? What are you doing?” 

She nearly slips down the stairs, and finds herself thankful for the balance that her years of surfing have afforded her. Her lungs burn the effort and her eyes sting with sea salt. She will be dreadfully sore if she makes it to the next morning. 

Katara is hollering quite loudly as she fights to cling onto the rails. Zuko is more silent in his distress, exerting all energy into clinging to the rails next to her. They are both loosing grip quickly.

Blood beats behind her ears as her heartbeat picks up. It is the same thing. The same thing all over again. Her mother and Zuzu, she could only save one. She can see blood on the sea foam. She shakes her head, she is wasting time. 

As she cautiously but speedily nears the both of them she can see it in Katara’s eyes, the absolute horror. The acknowledgment that she is a second priority. Azula feels sick. At least her mother had been out before the sea had claimed her, Katara was aware. She knew…

It might not matter anyhow, Zuzu is heavier than she and she finds that he is pulling her closer to the edge rather than she pulling him back from it. She is losing her footing and the grip that she has on a decorative post.

As her fingers slip, a strong arm wraps around her torso. It takes the wind out of her as it pushes into her stomach. But it keeps her from going over the edge, she and Zuko both. They are safely away from the rails but Katara is not. She springs forward before Ozai can keep her from it. She hears the man let out a string of curses. 

Azula grabs Katara by the wrist just as she lets go of the railing. The sudden increase in gravity takes the both of them over the edge. She manages to grab the railing, her arm twisting painfully. She doesn’t let go of Katara and thanks every power that Katara is light enough to hold. 

Thunder roars and the waves below surge up. Katara is frightened beyond screaming. She and Azula both. It seems like forever that they are suspended there. Azula looks up and in a flash of lightning she sees them. 

Those same phantom sails. 

It must be the sail that Zuko has lost hold of. 

But she swears…

Another flash. She swears that she can make out the haul of the  _ Pearl Racer _ .

For a moment she forgets her predicament. She squints against the rain. But only for a moment before she is suddenly wrenched up. She gives a sharp cry as her shoulder pops, but she and Katara are laying on the boat instead of in the churning waters. 

She sits up and scans the water. 

The sails are gone. 

They had never been there. 

**.oOo.**

By noon, the storm has lessened into light rain and then a drizzle. Azula is still shaking. She hears Zuko speaking into the radio, they aren’t terribly far from a mass of land. 

“Do you want me to pop it back into place or do you want to wait until we can get you to a hospital.”

She has been avoiding looking at her arm, she is nauseated by the way her skin bulges. “J-just do it.” 

Ozai nods. He hands her a balled cloth. “Bite down on this.” She takes a deep breath and obliges. “Ready?” She is anything but, though she nods regardless. She squeezes her and and screams into the cloth as Ozai pops her shoulder back into place. 

Her eyes sting with tears and her trembling doubles. She can see Katara cringing from afar. Ozai takes her into his arms and rubs her head, “that’s my girl. You always have been a fighter.” 

She wishes that she didn’t have to. 

“Get her some ice, boy!” 

“Yes sir.” Jet half grumbles. 

With him gone Ozai inquires, “why did you do it? You should have let me.”

She shakes her head. She is faster than he. He wouldn’t have made it. And even if it weren’t so, she had to do it. “Because I couldn’t save mother…”

Ozai’s brows furrow. “You couldn’t have, you were…”

“I chose Zuzu.” She cuts him off. “I couldn’t save them both. I chose Zuzu.”

He nods, understanding. He squeezes her more tightly. “She would have wanted you to save him. She always was fussy and protective over him.” He forces a chuckle. “She would have scolded you if you hadn’t picked him.” 

The tears finally come. Tears that are years overdue. 

“Does he know?”

Azula shakes her head. 

“It is probably better if he doesn’t.” Ozai pauses. “You’re a strong girl. I raised you well.” His soft voice hardens some, “but don’t you do that again, you understand me?”

She nods.

She doesn’t think that he has ever held her so tightly.


	19. Anchored

Azula winces, what a wonderful thing it is to wake up to such intense throbbing. It is expected but unpleasant all the same. Mostly her arm aches but her legs and abs aren’t feeling much better. She doesn’t need to look to know that her body is covered in a decent helping of bruises, some of which are quite notably large. She rolls over on the mattress several times over and resigns herself to that she won’t be getting comfortable no matter which way she positions and angles her body. The comfiest position has her weight pushing against a particularly large knot on her hip. She punches herself up and utters a soft irritated groan. 

At first she thinks that it is a miracle that she had slept at all that night, but it is rather clear that sheer exhaustion had knocked her out completely. 

“I can get you some ice.” Katara mumbles as she rubs the sleep from her eyes. 

Azula nods. “Ice might work.” She hopes that it will provide her with at least some relief. 

She finds herself musing about what might have happened to her if she had successfully managed to get her boat on the waters before her father could catch her. What might have happened, had she tried this journey alone. 

Having left around a month earlier, she wouldn’t have run into that storm. But surely she would have had to deal with another. 

She might not have made it. But then, she wouldn’t have had to worry over Katara and Zuko. She thinks of the snapped sail, about the unfurling of the storm sails. A sea storm is a task for many not for a solo adventurer. 

She wouldn’t have made it. 

She thinks of Sokka, a solo adventurer. 

Azula tries to still her thoughts, she is going to spiral...

Katara comes back with the ice before she can. In the other girl’s hand is one of the small painkillers that had been prescribed to her at the hospital. Azula takes the pill from Katara and drinks it down. 

“Here, let me.” Katara offers. 

Azula turns her more aching shoulder to Katara and allows the girl to hold the ice pack to it. She sighs, “I feel like this is my fault. If I would have just stayed below deck…”

Azula cuts her off, “it isn’t your fault.” She has come to decide long ago that it never really is. She has come to decide long ago, that storms are to be feared. And yet she can’t ever truly shake away the intrigue. She isn’t sure what exactly it is, but something pulls her to them. She thinks that in some twisted way, it makes her feel closer to her mother. 

“I still feel bad.” Katara sighs.

Azula shrugs, wincing in an instant. 

“Don’t do that!” Katara scolds. 

Azula gives her own sigh, she hadn’t realized just how much she shrugs until she had gone and mess her shoulder up. “I wanted to go out to sea.” She says after the pain passes and she can ungrit her teeth. 

Katara gives a soft smile. “Regret it yet?”

Azula thinks for a moment. The first thing that comes to her mind is a sunset with dolphins and poorly cooked shrimp. The second is the feeling of cat fur on her calf and the horrid taste of pineapple seafood on her tongue. 

She finds that, even in conjuring, in her mind, the events of the storm that she most vividly latches onto her father’s tight embrace after it had come to pass. That fierce feeling of protectiveness and of being protected. There had been a closeness, one that hadn’t been there in such a long time. 

She thinks of the satisfying splash of her father’s final liquor bottle hitting the ocean water as it finally claims something from her that she hadn’t wanted in the first place. 

“I don’t.” 

Katara rolls her eyes, “of course not, that was probably fun for you.”

“Hmm.” Azula ponders again. It might have been had she not been so completely horrified. “It was...exciting, that’s for sure.”

“Exciting in a good way?”

She shakes her head. “Not this time.” 

“Let’s go up on deck, Zuko said that your dad spotted land.” 

“Land sounds wonderful.” She pauses. “Inhabited or uninhabited?” 

Katara shrugs. 

**.oOo.**

The island is lush and teeming with various flora and fauna. A fragrance of hibiscus, pineapple, and coconut wafts in the air weaving through tall grasses, jasmine, and bromeliads with the hues and brightness of a sunset. 

A short distance from the island, Ozai has convinced Zuzu to go for some father-son time. Much to her brother’s dismay, Ozai’s choice activity is fishing. Zuzu always did hate fishing, he’d never had the patience for it. 

“I wish I’d have remembered my camera.” Katara remarks. 

“That’s what phones are for.” Jet points out. 

“Not if you want a high resolution photograph.” Azula shrugs and flinches. 

“You have got to stop doing that.” Jet chuckles. 

The girl frowns and massages her shoulder. “I caught something!” She hears Zuko shout. She hopes that this means that they will be heading into town soon. Granted town is a cluster of private homes and a few recreational facilities. It is a small and hidden pocket of the world. Which, according to the locals, probably wouldn’t be known at all if not for them making trips to buy food. 

For the time being, Azula stretches herself out on a beach towel and lets the sun warm her back. 

“Sunscreen?” Katara offers. 

“That’s probably a good idea.” Azula holds her hand out. “Jet?” 

The boy rubs sunscreen upon her back, arms, and legs, taking the care to avoid any cuts and scrapes. Goodness, it looks like she has just emerged from a terrible fight, she hopes that the locals won’t take all of these bruises the wrong way. She isn’t sure if it paints a better picture or a worse one with Katara’s back decently banged up as well. She is fairly certain that Zuko’s hand are raw and cut from having the sail so forcefully torn from them. Her father has a rather sizable knot on his own shoulder, she isn’t sure exactly what it is from. 

Ultimately, she decides that people will probably not that they are sea travelers and that there had been a storm and put two and two together. 

“It’s kind of nice to have a break from ocean water.” Katara remarks. 

“Those two are crazy for not taking advantage of it.” Jet comments with a head nod towards Zuko and Ozai. 

“They’ll come to shore soon.” Azula shrugs.

**.oOo.**

“We’re due for another spat of bad weather.” Ozai informs. 

“When?” Zuko asks. 

“Two nights from now, they predict.” he replies. “So I have found us a place to stay. There is a small motel on this island, we will stay there until the storm passes, I don’t have the funds to repair our boat after another beating like the first one.”

“That’s probably a good call.” Katara agrees. 

“I guess that I can use a longer break.” Azula nods. 

He is thankful that the decision is unanimous. Truth be told he frets over the prospect of losing Azula to a storm. He had come so close. Had his hand slipped he would have lost his own daughter and then would have had to explain to Hakoda and Kya how he’d lost theirs too. 

Truth be told, he is afraid of a lot of things at sea. 

Truth be told he isn’t thrilled about this journey.

It has its perks and he would be lying if he said that he doesn’t have any happy memories from it. But it has its risks. Too many of them for him to be wholly comfortable. All the same, he would rather be there than have her run off alone. 

The clouds roll in near sunset, he watches them from the balcony. Wispy and grey with rain, they carry with them a chillier gust. They don’t have the thick and bloated darkness of a more powerful storm. They are merely a grey washed warning of what the next several days will bring.

Weak as these clouds may be, he can’t help but feel a sense of foreboding. It swells in his stomach as a light tingle, an itch that something will go amiss. At the very least, that something significant will happen. Khozen has always called that the sailor’s instinct. 

Ozai inhales deeply, they are far inland in a sturdy motel, so long as they keep their boat docked, they will be fine. 

He puts his head against the pillows. However plush they are, he doesn’t get much sleep from them. The first pitter patters of rain come down. He hears the drops upon the window. The sound of rain carries into his dreams. Dreams wherein it comes down like a liquid wall and lightning forks above waves as tall as buildings. His hand is wrapped around Azula’s and then it isn’t. 

Azula’s hand slides out of his and he watches her fragile body get swallowed by the waves. 

He shouldn’t be able to hear her over the roar of the waves and the fury of the gales, shouldn’t be able to hear her through the water filling her lungs. But he does, clear as day. She asks him how he could let her fall, how he could leave her to drown. 

Her voice interweaves with Ursa’s and, against all logic, his wife’s face flickers onto and off of Azula’s.

He wakes with a chill, the rain is falling harder. 

In the bed over, Azula stirs. 

He takes a deep breath and tries to go back to sleep.


	20. In Retrospect & In Future

_ It was over something so stupid, she could have probably forgetten about it entirely if it weren’t such a milestone.  _

_ Sokka was absolutely convinced that angelfish and angler fish were the same thing. For some reason, it drove her mad and she just couldn’t let it slide. After a certain point, she was almost certain that he was basking in his wrongness, flaunting it pridefully and adamantly rejecting facts just to spite and bother her. _

_ She searched up images and presented them to him. She edited side by side pictures of angelfish verses anglers. He would declare that anyone could edit text to make it look like a real search and that all of her images were fakes.  _

_ And louder than ever he would declare that the fish were exactly the same. And when those antics became tired, he began stating that that ‘angle’ was a mispronunciation of ‘angle’ and therefore that angelfish do not exist. _

_ Azula’s face had grown beet with aggravation that day, her patience worn thin. She began bickering with him about other things; about how he was growing his facial hair out because he knows that she hated the scratchy feeling of it while kissing him, that she was blowing him off for surfing and Chan, that he needed to clean his damn room if he wanted her to come over… _

_ It was endless.  _

_ She was certain that Toph was watching with a bowl of popcorn. And then he told her that she was too fussy and uptight and that he wanted to find himself a girlfriend that wasn’t so high strung and argumentative.  _

_ She was thankful for her own stubbornness, lest she’d have tried to make herself more sheepish and timid to appease him. But she would have been fooling herself if she said that she, even if unconsciously, toned it down several notches. It might have been the product of a low mood. She didn’t really speak with many people that week, no matter how many times Mai and TyLee tried to coax it out of her.  _

_ The following week she’d finally vented to TyLee who had nodded along and got teary eyed on her behalf. Azula sighed, the girl seemed almost more distressed about the breakup than she had been. _

_ Evidently that was how things got resolved. Sokka had been passing by when TyLee’s lip began to quiver. He turned around ready to scold her for making TyLee cry and then TyLee had burst out that she was weeping because the two of them had made such a cute couple and she was sad to see it end over angelfish.  _

_ How absurd it had sounded when phrased like that.  _

_ “Oh man, that is…” his face had gone so very red. “Wow.” And he started chuckling. _

_ For some reason Azula had felt compelled to point out, “you shaved?” _

_ Sokka stroked his chin. “Turns out that facial hair nurtured and grown using spite is very patchy and makes you look like a backwoods serial killer.” _

_ “At least they’ll see it coming this time.”  _

_ That was their first fight.  _

_ That was their first break up and make up. _

_ It wasn’t their only fight but it was their only break up. _

**.oOo.**

The storm raging outside leaves Azula with too much time to think. For awhile she and Jet wander the hotel hallways, stealing kisses when Ozai isn’t there to groan or roll his eyes. But they feel somehow empty and she thinks that he is aware. Evidently she just isn’t in the mood for passion and romance. 

She can’t quite place its origins but a feeling of sorrow is choking her, muting many of her other emotions. Jet, Zuko, and Katara have all gone to the cafeteria for snacks. She lies on her bed and stares at the ceiling, tuning in and out of Ozai’s video call. She knows that the storm has broken the connection when she hears a muttered curse, “dammit.” The only other explanation is that Nobu has made another off color remark. 

Her father has only complained about the squeaky voiced man at every chance he got. “Nobu should be banned from our meetings, he is enough to have a person drinking again.” Is among his most common declaration. It faintly humors she and Zuko both. 

He closes his laptop and peers over at her. “Why aren’t you with the others?”

She shrugs. “Maybe I think that your AA meetings are more entertaining.” 

“You can lie to everyone else, but not me.” He says flatly. “Are you still thinking about the last storm?” 

Azula swallows, it comes to her that, that is a decent chunk of her distress. But it is more than that. Much more. She finds herself staring at the floor with an uncomfortable fluttering in her tummy.

“If you want to talk, I’ll be here…”

“I was going to let Katara die.” She pauses. “Just like I let mother die.”

Ozai inhales sharply. “Zuko is your brother.”

“And Katara is my friend. Her family let me stay at their house…”

“I think that it would have been much harder to have lost your brother, yes. But you don’t have to worry about that because both of them are alive. Even if Katara had fallen, it might have been for the best. She would have been with her brother.” 

She knows that he is trying to help, that he is doing his best. “That’s awful, father.” She says flatly. 

He sighs. “You know that I am not a very comforting person.” 

She nods. “Yes. But I still want to talk to you.” 

“Well continue then.” He prompts.

“I think that she is angry with me, she knows that I picked Zuzu.”

“I’m not angry.” Katara replies as she closes the door. “I care about you and Zuko more than you guys know. But I would have chosen Sokka if I had to make that choice. He’s your brother, Azula and losing a brother…” She falters. “I can’t even explain how it feels.”

“Probably a lot like losing your mother…”

“Yeah.” She trails off. “Can I sit?”

Azula makes room on the bed. 

“Is that what has been bothering you?” 

“One of the things.” 

“What are the others?”

Azula stares, with tired eyes, at her palms. She hasn’t checked the mirror, but she is fairly certain that she has rather prevalent bags under her eyes. Decidedly, she is glad that she isn’t on the ship right now. That in itself is exhausting enough. She lays down upon the mattress and clutches a pillow. 

“You aren’t sleeping well?” Katara guesses. 

“Correct.”

“Do you miss home?” Ozai asks. 

She shakes her head. “I’ve been having dreams.”

“Dreams?” Ozai inquires. 

“About mother.” Her grip tightens. 

“Let me guess, she asks you why you couldn’t save her?” Katara asks.

“No.” She is quiet for a very long time, the knots in her stomach build and tighten. She bites the inside of her cheek. “She doesn’t say anything at all. She just goes under and I don’t see her again.” She is surprised that she can keep her tone so level with such an intense wave of sadness is building up in her brain. “And then I see the bloody foam and the sand.” 

Katara swallows. 

“I haven’t had that dream in a while.” She adds quietly. “I thought that I was done having them.”

“Well, you were just put in the exact same situation as before.” Katara points out. 

“I know.” 

“And this time it worked in your favor.” Ozai comments. “You saved your brother and Katara.” He clamps a hand on her shoulder. “That is power, dear. That is something to be proud of. Carry it into your dream.”

“I’ll try.” But, for as much as she fancies control, she isn’t a lucid dreamer. 

“I dream about your mother too.” Ozai admits upon growing tired of hearing only the hum of the air conditioner. “She asks me why I didn’t tell her to stay home.” He pauses. “I should have. I had a feeling about that day and I ignored it.” 

There comes a flash of lightning so bright and then the room goes dark. The air conditioner’s incessant whir is cut short, leaving them with only the sound of rain falling as heavy as the death they speak of.

“Why is it always like that? Why do we always feel so guilty?” Katara asks.

“Because, when there’s nothing that you can do, the mind fills itself with fantasies of what you could have done if you had only been stronger.” Ozai answers. 

Azula isn’t sure if this is true for her, but it is the only answer that anyone has ever given her. She grips the pillow tighter, if only she had seen it coming. And she thinks that, that is a better answer “We feel guilty because we keep reminding ourselves of what we could have done if we would have just seen it coming.”

Her father suddenly looks so very far away. 

Her head pounds and aches as it tries to work through guilt and grief so freshly resurfaced. Doubly so when Sokka’s face slips into the mix. 

The door crashes open.

“They found someone in the storm!” Jet declares. 

“They’re trying to get them out of the water.” Zuko adds. 

Azula nearly covers her ears. The last thing that she needs right now. She isn’t sure why, but she gets to her feet and heads for the door.

“Azula where are you going?” Her father asks. 

“To the beach.”

“For what?!” 

_ To be stronger, _ she notes to herself. For who, she isn’t sure. Perhaps only herself, to prove that she can beat the storm and the ocean more than it has beaten her. She had lost her mother and Sokka to it but she has kept if from stealing Zuko twice and Katara once. She will fight the ocean until the score is so tipped in her favor that the nightmares will cease. 

“You are not going out there!” His voice is raised but she keeps walking.

She feels his hand clamp around her wrist, bruisingly hard. This time she doesn’t flinch. “Let go, father.” He is already dragging her back into the room. “Would it matter if I said that you’re hurting me?”

“ _ I’m _ hurting you?” He asks. “That storm will hurt you more than I ever can.” 

“I’m going to help them rescue the sailor, father. I am going to do it so that the nightmares will stop. I am strong, I know what is coming. This time I am going to stop it.”

Ozai rubs his hands over his face. “You enjoy raising my blood pressure, don’t you?” He asks. “We’ll go out there together.”

“I’ll go too.” Zuko replies. 

“So, you wanna watch TV or something?” Jet asks Katara. 

“First of all, the power is out. Second of all, if they’re going into the storm, so am I.”

Jet groans. “And I thought that my reckless hero syndrome was bad.”

Azula narrows her eyes as she makes her way down the hall. She has already decided the outcome of this fight. The storm won’t fracture another family. The dreams will leave her mind.


	21. Two To Four

_ There is a roaring of waves, the rush of the ocean in full force. It mixes with the brutal beating of the rain until the sounds of its water can no longer be distinguished from that of the ocean below it.  _

_ There comes a distant binging noise.  _

_ Or maybe it is a ping. _

_ It is rhythmic.  _

_ Rhythmic as the tides beating against the rocks. There is a pause in their rhythm, the sound of bones cracking and snapping. They are heard by one person only. The waves pull downward and sweep away sand and blood and body. _

_ They sweep and swirl into… _

_ A beep _

_ The sound is a soft beep. _

_ The swaying a palm fronds as the wind rustles them. The sun beats down between them. It burns skin and hurts eyes. The swishing of the fronds is soothing. The only thing that is soothing.  _

_ It could also be a blip depending on how muffled and distorted it is.  _

_ Sand and small but sharp rocks scrape against soles. Shoes are so worn down that they might as well be discarded. There is the sound of furious rain, buckets upon buckets of it. But there is not a storm cloud in sight. There isn’t a single drop of rain, only the sweltering sun and nothing to provide relief from it.  _

_ And yet rain can be heard. _

_ Beep. Beep. Beep… _

_ Thunder can still be heard but the sky is still blue. The waves don’t stir as they should with thunder in the air. They are quite smooth. But the sun...this time there is no canopy to obscure it. Skin blisters. Soars emerge. The saltwater sores worsen. _

_ Beep. Beep. Beep… _

_ Why are there trees in the ocean? _

_ The storm is back. Thunder, lightning, the sound of rain and wave. A rumble that isn’t the thunder nor waves. A sensation of being yanked at and tugged upon. It could be the waves, maybe a shark? Both have vicious pulls. Whatever it is--they are?--it doesn’t give up. _

_ The beeping is shriller this time. More continuous.  _

_ There is a smell like antiseptic that mixes in with the smells of salt and jungle plant.  _

_ There is hunger.  _

_ There is pain.  _

_ There are images.  _

_ So many images and they are all so jumbled. _

**.oOo.**

Azula hadn’t anticipated there being anything worse than being on a boat during a storm. Likely because she hadn’t tried imagining being in a storm in various types of vehicles, much less a helicopter. A helicopter made for tourist sightseeing no less. She supposes that she sees the logic in it though, they make it to the sailor faster than they would have on a boat. 

It is mostly a volunteer effort, emergency personal wouldn’t make it there before the sailor and their raft would be ripped to shreds. A life jacket and rescue goggles, equipped with a snorkeling set isn’t exactly a comfort. They are designed for survival in an over the water helicopter crash, not to withstand storm waves. 

The pilot, she hasn’t gotten his name, assures her that he has navigated a storm like this one before. That he is well trained for a situation where the weather suddenly turns sour. It will be she, Ozai, a woman who has done helicopter jumps before, and an off duty coast guard. Evidently, that man is the only reassuring thing. 

In the distance she sees her brother, Katara, and Jet. They wait on the shore with varying degrees of anxiety. Her own hasn’t settled in, adrenaline has cleared it out to make room for action and reckless determination. 

The helicopter hovers above the sailor. She hopes that this sailor will cling onto that raft, she doesn’t know how they will find this person if they slip off and into the waves. Azula eyes don’t leave the raft until it is time to make the jump. The other woman had spent the flight giving her a run down on how to make said jump, such a brief intro doesn’t leave her feeling like a bright beacon of confidence. 

She is nervous. 

It is a horrid time to admit to herself that she is as afraid of storms as she is thrilled by them. It is one thing to watch them rolling in from a distance, to feel that anticipative charge or energy. To taste lightning on her tongue with the safety of her home in sight. 

It is another matter entirely to throw herself into a storm that is well underway. One wreaking havoc on the open ocean. 

Azula lets herself drop. For a moment she remembers…

It was a feeling of freedom and relief. Of sorrow and hopelessness melting away before that sense of euphoria is slammed away by a burst of sharp pain on her chin. 

There is no pain this time. And this time she plans to fight the waves, to survive them instead of silently begging for them to end her. 

She isn’t a particularly strong swimmer, but she is a determined one. A determined one who has a startling knowledge about navigating waves like these. She has done it twice before, granted she hadn’t put up much of a fight the second time. But if she could do it once, and in a worse storm, she can do it again.

She makes it to the sailor first, having landed herself the closest to him, but the coast guard isn’t far behind. And she is thankful for that. She has been struggling to hold  _ herself  _ upright, much less she and the sailor. 

It is rather embarrassing to become a second distressed swimmer in need of rescue, but she has provided the sailor with a rather critical breath of air that he wouldn’t have gotten to take otherwise, one that she would find out had saved his life. She is the only thing keeping him from going under and disappearing.

But the few seconds before the coast guard approaches are agonizing. She feels a sharp eruption and knows that she has managed to pop her shoulder out of place again in her effort to hold the sailor up. And her legs are incredibly sore to a degree she has never felt, even with years of surfing and sports under her belt. It takes so much effort to keep her head up as well as the sailor’s. 

For a moment, she forgets that there are two other people with her. For a moment she thinks that she is going to die, that Zuzu and Ozai will be lowering another coffin and mourning another loss. 

She feels a strong pull and furious clings to him with an effort more mighty that her popped shoulder should allow. She truly hates the tides. She won’t let them have this sailor. And then she sees a woman’s face. Her hold is only been broken by the coast guard pulling in the opposite direction, just as it settles in that it wasn’t the tides pulling the sailor at all. 

She hears the blades of the helicopter as it bends down. A ladder is thrown. They let her up first, she clings hard to the ladder as Ozai pulls it up. She watches the ladder drop twice more. 

It is only when the other three are safely in the plane that Ozai wraps a towel around her shivering body. Her hair clings to her forehead and arms. Arms that feel so sore and heavy. Azula’s entire body feels so heavy and she is too weak to carry it. It is a struggle to keep herself upright, she doesn’t think that she does. 

She wakes in her father’s arms, helicopter blades slice at the air and throw raindrops across the roof of a hospital. Her father is adamant about being the one to carry her inside. They let him after she moves her legs and good arm. 

They check her over, sedate her, and pop her shoulder back into place. This time she has a sling and a bottle of painkillers. 

“Your brother is on his way.” Ozai puts his phone aside. 

Azula nods. 

“Jet wants to know if you are alright.”

Azula nods. “I am fine.” It isn’t her own condition that worries her. Sure, she is completely drained, but otherwise she is healthy. She looks over at the bed next to her own. The boy, decidedly he is around as old as she--if not, the same age--is gaunt and frail. His skin is covered in raw and crusty sores, especially on his back. Some of them are infected. His face is so hollow. 

The doctors say that he will be fine if they can get control of his dehydration and starvation. They say that his lungs are healthy. 

“Lay down, dear.” Ozai says. “It’s impolite to gawk.” 

She supposes that he has a point, she wouldn’t like to have the sailor looking her over as she slept. She nuzzles her head against her pillow. She can’t remember the last time she had been  _ this  _ unbearably sore. Her arms and legs throb, her throat burns. 

But it is just as well; she has beat the ocean again. She is beating it two to four. She has lost her mother and Sokka but she has saved Zuko twice, Katara once, and the sailor. 

“Let me know when he wakes up?”

Ozai nods. “I will. Now get some rest.” 

She can’t promise that she will, not with the aches and not with her mind racing. But she promises to try. 


	22. Vivid Blue

They have trouble getting him to eat, anything they feed him seems to come back up again until they settle for giving him liquid food in small amounts; applesauces and oatmeals with a fair amount of tube feeding. She doesn’t like the sight of it. 

They tell her that she doesn’t need to be here, that she is well enough to go back to the hotel so long as she takes it easy. But she remains at the hospital, at least during visiting hours.

“No one has claimed him yet?” She hears one nurse ask. 

“No, not yet.” Says the other.

“And no ID?”

“All of his IDs and paperwork are probably on the ocean floor with his boat.”

The pair enter, a stout man with a clean shaven beard and a fleshy face and a woman, just as stout but rather petite. The man checks over the feeding tubes while the nurse checks over the patient himself. 

“Has he woken up at all?” The woman asks.

“Not while I’ve been here.” Azula replies.

Deciding that everything is in order, the doctors step out once more. She looks at the time, she ought to be heading out herself. She waits another few moments before pulling out her phone, it rings several times before Zuzu answers. “Why are you answering father’s phone?” 

“He and Jet went for a swim.” Zuko replies. “Do you need me to tell him something?” 

She hears the boy stir in his bed. She lowers the phone for a moment before replying. “Just tell him that the sailor is waking up, so I might be here for a little while longer.” She doesn’t wait for a reply before she stuffs her phone back into her purse. 

She wanders over to the bed. The boy squeezes his eyes tighter before opening them. They are tired and gentle and a very vivid blue. Azula swallows, they are a very familiar vivid blue. She takes his hand, wondering how it had taken her this long to recognize him. 

“Gee…” he speaks, his voice hoarse and weak. “Guess the town motto is true, ‘all waves lead to Port Tui-La.’” He tries to laugh but his mouth is too dry. 

She hands him a cup of water and waits for him to swallow before saying, “we’re not at Port Tui-La.” She wants to hug him with a tightness that will assure her that he won’t leave again. Even if she had both of her arms free to use, she worries about pressing on his sores the wrong way.

“Then where are we?” 

“A small resort island called, Su Oku.”

“You think that I could get a pina colada with this hospital banquet.” He gestures to the oatmeal.

“I think that you couldn’t keep a pina colada down if they gave one to you.” She replies. It is unfathomably amazing to hear his voice again. To hear those stupid and poorly timed jokes. 

“What happened to your arm?” He asks.

“It happened while I was saving you. You ass.”

“Now that’s no way to treat a guy in a hospital bed. That’s not how you…” he pauses for another drink. “Greet someone that you haven’t seen in months either.” 

“It’s a perfect way to treat an imbecile who promised to take you out for a birthday 

dinner and stood you up for months.”

He makes a gesture as if to slap his forehead but thinks better of it at the last moment, “Ah shit, I forgot your birthday.”

Azula could slap him. “We thought that you were dead, Sokka.” She whispers after the humor fades. And suddenly it is overwhelming. The notion that she is going to have to speak with Jet crosses her mind and mixes strangely with joy and relief. 

She feels his hand brush against her cheek, a rough and calloused hand. “Why are you crying?” 

“I’m not.” She wipes at her eyes. 

“Of course not.” He chuckles.

How is she going to tell him about Jet? How is she going to tell Jet about him? But he’s alive, goodness he’s alive. She carefully cups her hand over his. “What happened to your ship and how did you survive?”

“It’s a long story.” He replies, she can tell that he is going to fade out again. “Visit tomorrow and you might get to hear it.”

“Might?!”

He is already out again. She finds herself laughing. Of course he will leave her unanswered. 

It dawns upon her, as the nurse enters that she probably should have let them know that he was awake. 

**.oOo.**

She finds herself terribly anxious the closer they draw to the hotel. The walk from the hospital isn’t terribly long, she almost wishes that it could be longer. It is a nice day, in the storm’s wake there is a cooler edge to the day. For once her skin isn’t slick with sweat from the walk and jasmine dances within the breeze. “You’re quiet.” Zuko remarks. 

“Enjoy your break.” Azula mutters. 

“Did something happen to the sailor?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing bad.” 

“But something happened.” 

“He woke up.”

“And.” 

She bunches her hands in her pockets. She isn’t sure why she is so hesitant to tell him. Perhaps it is because she doesn’t want him to slip and tell Jet before she can. “It’s Sokka.”

Zuko comes to a full halt. “What? How?”

She shrugs. She had imagined it time and time again, a reunion, telling Katara that her brother is alive. And perhaps it is because she had truly expected it to be anything but a reality, that it is so hard for her to process that her daydreams have become truth. 

Truth be told, she isn’t quite ready. “I don’t know, Zuzu. I didn’t that we would actually find him.”

“Well aren’t you, I don’t know, elated?”

She knows that she should be. She should be happy, excited, grateful. And she is, but she is also nervous. It has been so long. He doesn’t know about father, he doesn’t know about Jet, about...she traces the length of the scar on her arm, rather she traces the parts of it that aren’t tucked into the sling. “I am.” She says. “I’m just trying to figure out what to tell Jet.”

“Fuck off, is a good option.” 

She elbows him. “I know that you don’t like him but he treats me well.” They pass a merchant selling bundles of hibiscus and bamboos sticks. With the storm well and past, the island is lively again. She spies several bikers and a couple with a picnic basket. There is a child with an armful of shells and a missing sandal, an exasperated woman holds that sandal. Colorful umbrellas are propped open all along the beach that runs parallel with the road. A road that is scattered with palm fronds, branches, clusters of flowers, and other things that the storm had thrown about. She can hear the hum of cicadas and the chatter of birds, mostly seagulls. “I suppose that I should just tell him outright.” That is how she would have wanted it if Jet had fallen for someone else.

“That’s what I meant when I said tell him to fuck off.” 

Azula rolls her eyes. “I’m sure it is.” But that doesn’t make it any less daunting, knowing that she has so much to fill Sokka in on. Though she supposes it is, at the end of the day, fair. He has a long story for her and she has a rather long one for him. If he will hear the rest of it after finding out about her fling with Jet. 

She decides that she will get to that part after talking about how increasingly difficult and lonely things had gotten. She will answer the why’s before sharing what they had led to. 

She enters the hotel and holds the door open just long enough for Zuko to get his hopes up before letting it slam in his face. He cusses and she chuckles. It has been a while since she’d got him like that.

“See if I hold it open for you next time!” 

She fixes him with a faux pout. “You mean you’d slam the door on your handicapped little sister?”

“I sure would.” He replies. 

They reach the hotel room at the same time as her father and Jet. She watches Jet rub his hair with his towel. 

“They left you by yourself?” Azula asks. 

Katara shrugs. “I could use the quiet time. How was your visit?” 

“It was…” she can’t keep the smile from her face. “Surreal.”

“Surreal?” 

“He’s alive, Katara. That sailor is…”

“Sokka?” She asks softly.

Azula nods. She has made Katara cry several times throughout childhood, and once as a pre-teen when she’d decided that she was too cool to hang out with the girl anymore. But she had never made her cry with joy and relief. 

“You sure that it’s him?”

“He asked me for a pina colada.” 

“That’s him alright.” Ozai grumbles. He slings his towel onto one of the racks and makes his way into the bathroom. 

“Hey!” Jet calls. “We agreed that I get the first shower!”

“You have things to discuss with my daughter.” Ozai shrugs. “I’ll take an extra long one to make sure that she can cover all of the details.” With that, the door closes and she hears the lock pop into place. 

“He’s alive, Zuko!” Katara springs up and throws her arms around him. “My brother is alive!” She lets go of Zuko and turns to Azula. “You saved him…” 

Azula nods. “He better treat me extra special or I’ll throw him right back out there.” She folds her good arm against the other. 

“Do you need us to…?” Zuko gestures towards the door. 

Azula nods. She waits for the door to shut once more before taking a seat on the bed.

Jet sighs and rubs the back of his head. “I take it, there’s nothing I can do to make you choose me.” 

She hesitates before shaking her head. “There’s nothing.”

He blows out through his lips, “the ride home is going to be mighty awkward.” 

“It doesn’t have to be.” She answers despite being well aware that she has a solid track record for being awkward as hell.

“Does he know yet?”

“No.” She says. “He will tomorrow.” She just hopes that that will go well. 

“Were you using me as a rebound?” Jet asks. 

“No.” She says again. “I was trying to move on…”

“Which is why you went out on a sailing trip to find your boyfriend?”

“I didn’t anticipate anything coming from it.” 

He nods, clasps his hands together and presses them to his lips. “Then why do I feel like I got used.” 

“I didn’t use you.” She insists. “If I had I would have asked for a lot more cash.” 

This elicits a humored snort. “I’m going to go back to the pool.” He stands. She doesn’t stop him. The soft slam of a door, shut slightly too hard, rebounds around the room. She supposes that he needs to process things. She needs to process things. Good news or not, her head still spins and she finds herself feeling notably drained. She falls back onto the mattress and stares at the ceiling. 


	23. The Big Yellow Raft & The Blue Ocean

_ He thought that it would be a storm or a mechanical failure. It was neither. It was, of all things, a fight. He doesn’t think that anyone will believe him, but he knows that it was true. He’d seen it with his own eyes, long before the ocean had driven him to a state of temporary madness.  _

_ Two sharks had been going at it for who knew how long and he had driven his boat right in the middle of it. They might have thought him a third shark, or maybe he was just collateral damage, but the haul of his ship had been punctured. It flooded with water faster than he could dream to be rid of it. There was no way to be rid of it even if the flood was a slow one.  _

_ He could only yearn and hope for mercy and hope that the sharks didn’t take notice of his big, bright yellow emergency raft. He could only scramble to gather as much food, water, and emergency supplies as he could without sinking the raft. He was thankful that the raft was built for emergencies, built to hold up not just his weight but the weight of the supplies as well.  _

_ He looked into the water, the sharks whipped and thrashed. The water tinged pink, in its haste and agony, the larger of the two sharks slammed into his raft. He cursed as one of his food crates fell overboard. He made a snatch for it as the shark darted off the body slam its opponent, a retaliatory strike. His weight, stretched so far, was nearly tipped the raft. He cursed again and accepted that he was simply going to be that much shorter on food. _

_ He took a moment to observe the sharks while they thrashed and gnashed at each other. Decidedly, they were well and occupied. He begins paddling in the opposite direction. He would worry about getting back on route once he was at a safe distance from the brawl.  _

_ He reached for his compass and his stomach plummeted. He had left it, amid his other navigational tools, on the deck of his sinking ship. A sinking ship that had become only a splintering mast. His tools were well on their way to the ocean floor, perhaps to be found centuries later by a lucky diver.  _

_ For how long he drifted after that he wasn’t entirely certain. After the first week things started to blend. Days and nights bled into one another. Thoughts and memories became intermingled. And soon the sky and the sea were one and the same.  _

_ He couldn’t say when his mind had started to go, he thought that it was probably when he noticed that his food supply was running short. He had managed to conserve his water well, but he had always had a bit of an appetite… _

_ And the isolation.  _

_ Powers above, the isolation.  _

_ He was a social man. Sure, he wasn’t the popular jock sort. And sure, as much as he liked to think otherwise, he wasn’t so smooth with the ladies. He liked to joke that that’s how he’d ended up with Azula. Azula who also wasn’t particularly smooth. Though, where he was social and talkative, she was more of a loner. She had Mai and TyLee tagged along to Chan’s surf team parties but she usually spent those at the fringes of the party. He would make his way up and down the beach chattering with anyone who was willing to have a conversation.  _

_ He could never stand awkward silences nor nights alone. And suddenly he was all alone. Completely and wholly alone. With miles between he and any other person. Suddenly the ocean was as unfathomably vast as everyone had said. He stomach lurched and crawled constantly at the realization that he had so grossly underestimated how open the ocean was. He was only a teen, a teen who’d ventured out of Port TuiLa once on a family vacation, and to him the world used to be so small. _

_ But then the world was too big. _

_ And then after that, the world was nothing at all.  _

_ When his days were only monotonous blue blurs where nothing came by for days at a time, he certainly hadn’t felt as though there was a world. Not unless a world of endlessly rolling blue counted as a world.  _

_ He supposed that it did; the world is a cluster of sensations and feelings. He still had those even if sensations had been muted and restricted to a steady rocking and eventually relentless blistering sun scalding his skin.  _

_ That very well could have been the moment his mind began to unravel.  _

_ When he looked at his lobster red skin and noticed the first blister. At first he howled and wailed. He screamed at the sun to give him a break, to dim just for a moment. He screamed at the ocean to stop spraying the busting blisters with salt. After that he went quiet, there was only so much pain he could take before his mind went numb.  _

_ The sun wasn’t the only thing that he talked to. On one odd occasion a dolphin had come to swim alongside his boat for some ten minutes. He had a rather lengthy conversation with it that continued long after it had swam away. He can’t recall what their topic of discussion was. Probably, if he had to guess, he would say that it was about favorite meals. He stomach ached and pleaded for food until his body realized that it would be getting any. Eventually he went numb to that sensation too.  _

_ Before going out to sea, he imagined that a horrific storm would be the worst case scenario. Weeks? Months? Years? Out into sea, on a small bright yellow raft found with grey rumbling clouds in the distance, he found himself excited. It was stimulation, something to break the drab and endless uniformity of his days. The lightning humming and raising his hairs, the waves thrashing and rising perilously… _

_ It was the dangers that made him feel human.  _

_ The threat of death that made him feel alive. _

_ There were pleasantries that kept him going as well, though those were few and far between. One night when the moon was huge and full, when the stars reflected in full splendor upon the water’s surface, he watched them rise. Like fireflies they flew up from the water in clouds, flashing blue and purple lights dancing all around him as though drawn in by the bright yellow of his raft upon an otherwise inky surface.  _

_ There were fish too, shimmering silver and sleek black with bioluminescent dots. He could see a school of angler fish--he chuckled, thinking back to his first argument with Azula--they swam beneath his raft with their bulbs bobbing.They were like sea fireflies. Or maybe the land fireflies were like them.  _

_ In retrospect, he doesn’t think that they had been real at all.  _

_ What was real were the schools of fish that swam around. He had once found himself hovering above a strangely clear patch of ocean. It was hard to make out, like looking down at a street from atop a skyscraper with a glass floor. But he could see a sprawling metropolis of corals; yellow and spongy brain coral, green-grey pillar coral, red-orange and tree-like branch coral, bright red precious coral, and fuzzy looking scleractinia. Weaving expertly through their razor edges were schools of fish of different lengths and shapes. Their colors were magnificent.  _

_ Oh if Azula and Zuko were there, they would have so many more fish for their fish game.  _

_ He had wept that day. _

_ He missed the siblings.  _

_ He missed  _ his  _ sibling.  _

_ His parents.  _

_ He decided that he would take back the boring nothingness over such a deep craving.  _

_ He decided that he should just pitch himself into the sea. One deep inhale and the water would make its way in. A few desperate minutes of thrashing and struggling would be a mercy compared to the slow death he was living as he just drifted.  _

_ Drifting and drifting.  _

_ He wondered if anyone else was drifting too. Drifting and yearning and suffering as desperately. Far away on a different stretch of the ocean, but ailing as he was. The ocean was wide, surely he wasn’t the only one free floating in it.  _

_ He heard the rumble of thunder.  _

_ Felt the first raindrops on his skin.  _

_ He craved them, they soothed the burning of his skin at least for a moment.  _

_ He felt a jolt run around his raft, the world around him exploded and he found himself clinging to his food crate for dear life. Even after his consciousness faded, his hold remained.  _

_ He would tell the doctors that the storm had simply pushed his raft to land. That was more believable than noting that he had black out and fate pushed him to shore. He had been so excited to feel sand beneath his feet.  _

_ Excited that he was finally back with civilization.  _

_ Excited until he learned that civilization was a literal gathering of chimps.  _

**.oOo.**

A hospital bed is like a raft, it simply doesn’t drift. But it is as large as a raft and, with the right ailments, is just about as comfy as one. But at least this raft has food. At least this raft has company. 

She listens intently, so much so that he is surprised that she isn’t taking physical notes. He doesn’t think that she needs to do so to be able to recount his tale. Her memory was always good. 

He almost feels bad for not giving her a chance to get a word in. But she has had so much conversation and she doesn’t seem to mind. And he still has so much to say, even still they shoo her out with a mention that visiting hours are over for the night. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Sokka. I’ll bring Zuzu with too.” 

It is nice to hear her voice again. To hear a call that isn’t from the sea. To feel a kiss that isn’t from the sun. 


	24. Jungle Green

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update because I missed a day lol.

_ Sokka supposed that the chimps were better than no company at all. They would swing from the trees and whip twigs and bundles of leaves at him. On one occasion, one of them had chucked a whole coconut. But it was still better than being entirely alone. In some ways it reminded him of being in the boy’s locker rooms. It was just as much barbaric shenanigans and provided just as many feral pranks. They were just about as messy and mischief too.  _

_ He had to admit that it was fun for the first few days, until the glamor wore off and he began to realize that he had gone from one type of stranded to another. But at least this space was larger and teeming with food options. At least this one provided a canopy that took his skin out of the direct sunlight. He was beginning to feel like a vampire; cut off from the world and fearing sunlight. Instead of bats he had primages. Instead of sucking the blood out of people, he suckled knotweed and bamboo stem.  _

_ After what could have been a month on the island, he had come to observe things. Curious things like the way mosses trapped water. The dew they gathered was crucial when he hadn’t the energy to try to make a drink of knotweed and bamboo. _

_ His days on the island were not as monotonous as the ones spent in the waves. He found that he rather enjoyed exploring the island until the mosquitoes started to swam and bite. But he couldn’t return to the camp that he was steadily erecting. Not just yet. He still had to gather food. He managed to craft a spear, with luck he could capture a small animal to cook. The palm fronds swished in the breeze a rather soothing sound that was so rudely interrupted by the jabbering of his chimp companions.  _

_ He fell into a sort of routine that made him feel normal again. One that helped him, however delicately, pick up the fragments of his mind a piece them together again. By day, he would hunt and gather and work to make his camp secure. Sometimes he would go for a swim in the freshwater pond he had found a week or so into exploring. That little swimminghole had been a sanctuary. It provide him with fish, drink, and recreation after its discovery. He had moved his camp over to it and gleefully bid a goodbye to his days of sipping at plants for hydration.  _

_ Though the sores and blisters were still a problem and the mosquitoes were just as attracted to them as they were to the bond. They never truly cleared and he could never truly seem to get them clean. He was beginning to worry about them. _

_ At night he liked to lay on his back and observe the moon and stars through the palm fronts. The night sky was breathtakingly mystifying without city lights to hinder it. The moon especially was nice. When the chimps turned in and quieted for the night he would have conversations with the moon as though she were a cognizant entity that could hear him. She...for some reason he liked to call the moon a she. He would speak to her, messages that he wished for her to whisper to Katara and Kya and Hakoda. He would crack quips and witticisms at her to send off to Azula and Zuko. He hoped that the celestial body would craft some message that he was alive and stable but needed help that could be sensed on cosmic level. _

_ He thinks that it might have worked, even if a little late.  _

_ He can’t imagine any other reason for Azula being out in that storm.  _

_ He didn’t know how much time had passed but eventually, he had resigned to that no help would be coming. He hadn’t seen a ship or a plane to short off the emergency flares for. A part of him, that part of his mind that he couldn’t quite mend or get a grip on, considered that the world might have ended. That he was the last man on Earth, spared only by the coincidence of an unfortunate event that turned out to be a lucky one.  _

_ His logical mind told him that he had simply ventured into some remote corner of the world. A place so small that no one bothered stopping there.  _

_ His logical mind compelled him to leave the island.  _

_ He wanted to stay; the island was much more hospitable than the open waters. But there on the island he was stagnant. He would never get home.  _

_ He offered his chimps a farewell. He was going to miss them, especially Hou. He cried the first night he’d left the island. Though he had with him a more stable supply of food and water, he was still horrified at the prospect of being adrift again. His second era of floating by in a raft wasn’t so dreadful as the first. The stretch wasn’t as long before he reached an atoll. It was significantly smaller and had no food, but it was a break from the maddening roll of the waves and it was a much safer place to endure the storm. _

_ He found another small island. Desperation and a hardened mind gave him the ambition and strength he needed to slay a boar. Its left tusk became a cup and its right tusk a weapon. The right tusk is the only thing that he has managed to hang onto during the storm, a keepsake of his misadventure and struggles. _

_ Though he savored the tusks, its pelt was the most useful of his treasures. It had become a blanket while the boar’s meat was the first real meal he’d had in a while.  _

_ It was the last meal.  _

_ For the longest time he drifted from atoll to atoll--some greener than others but none of them had any real bounty. At best they were safe spots to hide on when clouds darkened and waves punched away at the sand.  _

_ And soon he was back to drifting with no land in sight at all. He had gotten so used to a plentiful helping of atolls that he had deluded himself into believing that the chain of them would be endless or that they would lead him to the mainland. For his assumption, it struck like a punch to the gut when days rolled by and he found nothing but endlessly rolling waves.  _

_ At night, he spoke to the moon more often. During the day hid from the sun’s rays beneath the blanket. It could only do so much though, the blisters were rising again and irritated once more by the saltwater.  _

_ He felt as though he were being cooked alive.  _

_ He started praying for death.  _

_ He watched clouds roll in, darker than he had ever seen and accented by bursts of lighting so powerful I could only think of a hurricane. _

_ He smiled, knowing that his prayers have been answered.  _

_ Though he hadn’t realized that it was his prayers to see civilization that had been answered until a shrill beeping pierced his ears.  _

**.oOo.**

She is at the foot of his bed clutching his hand. It is so sublimely wonderful to have human contact again and exceptionally so to have a familiar face. A familiar touch. A touch that is absurdly warm, Azula always had been very warm. 

“I guess that it’s kinda weird but I kinda miss the chimps. I thought of bringing one home for you!” He finishes. 

“What would I have done with a whole chimpanzee?” Azula crinkles her nose. He laughs, he had forgotten about the way her face bunched up when he said something particularly dumb. 

“You would have loved it and cherished it.” Sokka declares. “He would have been our son.” 

Azula gives a humored sniff. “How do you even care for a chimp?” 

“The wonderful thing about the mainland is that we can look it up on the net.” 

“Dad would have never allowed a monkey in the house.” Zuko comments from across the room. 

“I’d keep it at my house.” Sokka replies. “Can you hand me that glass.”

Azula rolls her eyes. “It’s been what? A three days now? I think that you can reach over and get a glass yourself.” She hands it to him anyways. 

“If you’d been stranded out at sea, I’d get you as many glasses as you asked for.” Sokka tries a smile. 

“Without complaining?”

He thinks for a moment. “There would be a minimal amount of complaining.”

“And this is a minimal amount of complaining.” 

He chuckles, “that’s fair.” Frankly, he is glad that she isn’t completely doting over him and babying him. He doesn’t think that it would feel normal if she cried and gushed over him. He doesn’t count the stress of the first day. She was rather weepy the first time he’d  _ really  _ opened his eyes. The first day that it settled in that he was truly back. He thinks that it is much more comforting to get his daily dose of sass and sarcasm. Because it is normal. It makes him feel as though he hadn’t been gone for so long after all. 

Maybe the world hasn’t left him behind and discarded his memories. 

Maybe it hasn’t moved forward without him after all. 

Maybe she had been waiting for him all this time.

He grips her hand as tightly as he can with his sores and weakened muscles. Katara enters the room with lunch. He may not be home yet, but home has come to him. 


	25. While You Were Gone

She is holding him so tightly, clinging to him as though he were going to disappear right from the hospital bed. This is how he knows that something is wrong. That she is going to say or do something that he won’t like. Even after so long, he knows her mannerisms. She always gets more loving and cuddly before doing something that she knows will leave him absolutely reeling and seething. He has been gone for so long that he isn’t sure what that that thing could possibly be.

Or maybe it is that he simply doesn’t want to dwell on it much because he knows that he will find the answer.

Instead he tells her not to hold so tightly. She seems to remember the sores and loosens her hold. Granted she isn’t able to hold him as painfully tight as she could have, though her arms seems to be healing rather smoothly. She insists that it isn’t really a big deal.

“So…” he trails off. “I imagine that you have a few stories for me?” He inquires. 

“Many of them.” She replies. 

She opens her mouth to share them, but the doctors come to check up on him. Azula moves to let them tinker with the setting on his feeding tube, before ultimately deciding to take him off of it.

He waits until after they leave to inquire once more. “Well why don’t you start from the beginning?”

She thinks for a moment. “After you left, father’s drinking problem got worse.” After a brief pause, she adds, “unrelated to your disappearance. It had been steadily getting worse.”

Sokka furrows his brows. “He seems fine now.” 

Azula nods. “AA.” 

“And that’s going well?” 

“There isn’t much access to alcohol on a boat…” she trails off and he thinks that he knows what she is thinking. “I don’t think that he has bought any on this island.”

“I didn’t seem like he did when he came to visit.” Sokka smiles. 

**.oOo.**

That smile coaxes her forward, but delicate flutters still remain in her belly as she tries to find a way to continue. She doesn’t really care to discuss this matter. It isn’t something that she likes to think about if she can help it. 

“You don’t have to share everything.” Sokka says. 

“I would like to.” She takes a moment before continuing. “After father’s drinking problem started getting worse he started getting...harder to deal with. Everything was…” she finds herself at something of a loss. Since words seem to be failing her, she simply tilts her head so that he can see the scar.

His brows crinkle. “When did you get that?” She lets him trace his frail fingers over it. 

“When I...jumped.”

“You didn’t...it wasn’t on purpose, was it?”

She swallows, “it was.”

She watches him rub his hands over his face, run his fingers through his hairline. 

“I shouldn’t have left…” He mutters. “If I would have just stayed home…”

“Then you wouldn’t have gotten to have the adventure you wanted. That was your dream.” She replies. 

“And look at the nightmare that it turned out to be.” 

She shrugs. “You say that as if you aren’t going to make awful jokes about it and share the story at every party you get invited to.” He laughs. She had missed that laugh so much. Even if she can only manage a half smile at the moment. “Anyhow, I’m fine.”

He gives her a skeptical look. 

“I have a therapist, though I haven’t seen her in a while.” She mentions, she isn’t sure if that makes him feel more or less comforted. “I also have Zuzu and your sister. And I started surfing again.”

“You stopped?”

She nearly flinches, recalling that she’d been practicing every day prior to losing him. “For a while, yes. I had to manage the lighthouse.” It isn’t a lie, not entirely. “Father started neglecting it for the bar so Zuzu and I had to do it ourselves.”

“Geez.” He grumbles. “I think I’d take another month out at sea over that.” 

If he weren’t so covered in raw blisters, she’d have slapped him. “I don’t think that you mean that.” 

“How did Kat hold up?” He asks. “I know she told me that she was fine and that our parents are fine. But I need the truth.”

“I think that Katara handled things better than I did.” She admits with a degree of resentment at having to admit that she wasn’t the best at something. “And your parents helped Zuzu and I a lot when father got particularly bad.” Another thought suddenly crosses her mind, she doesn’t want to leave him with any surprises. Not bad ones anyhow. “Speaking of your parents helping us. We returned the favor; there was a hurricane and it damaged the restaurant.”

Again Sokka rubs his face and begins to speak.

“Let me finish.” She rolls her eyes. “We were able to fix it up, but I thought that you’d like to know.” 

“Thanks for the heads up.” He laughs. 

She takes a deep breath and hopes that he will appreciate the heads up that she is about to give him. She fidgets for a tense moment before finally saying, “those are the few most important things. But there’s something else.”

“Is it more or less disastrous than you jumping off of a cliff?”

“I guess that depends on what kind of disaster you have in mind.” 

“Katara already told me about her near death experience.”

“I figured as much. This is something else.”

“Please just say it, Azula. You always do.”

She can see in his eyes that he already knows what is coming, so she might as well put an end to her stalling. “It’s Jet.”

Sokka crinkles his nose. “Him? Really?” He brings his hands to his face a third time, but this time he simply holds them there. “So what does that mean for us?”

“Nothing.” She realizes how dreadfully poor her word choice is at the choking noise he makes. “Nothing changes, I mean.” There is a slight shake to her voice that betrays her nerves. “I told Jet before we left that the whole point of this trip was to find you.”

“I bet he tagged along because he was sure that I died.” 

She says nothing. Another mistake; bitter laughter fills the hospital room, overtaking the rhythmic beeping of his heart monitor. She wonders if it can detect heartbreak. “I guess the world did forget about me, huh? For a second I thought that…”

“It would just be the same as how you left it?” She fills in quietly. “We didn’t forget about you. We just...I couldn’t be alone.” She doesn’t think that the knots in her stomach can pull any tighter. She thinks that her face might be lightly flushed. She doesn’t like talking so deeply about her feelings. And she feels just as guilty for feeling so discomforted as she does for having moved on so soon. She should have waited until after the trip to give Jet a try. 

She can tell that he is resentful. She considers that she may have made the wrong call in breaking it off with Jet. Perhaps she was meant to find someone else. She likes to think herself clever, but she can’t fathom why the universe would grant Sokka back to her if things would only end unhappily. 

Azula can see the bitterness in his eyes. 

She stands up. “I’ll leave you with time to think about things.” 

**.oOo.**

His hospital room is empty before he can say anything at all. He gives an exasperated groan and slams his fist into the mattress. A burning sensation flares up his arm and he curses loudly. He hadn’t meant to hurt her.

His anger hadn’t even been directed at her. She just so happened to be the only one there to receive his frustrated outburst. Really it could have been anyone; Zuko, Katara, or Jet himself. 

He could only hide behind jokes and smiles for so long.

He had lashed out and now he is going to pay the price. And it occurs to him--if he could get up and anxiously pace, he would--that she might take herself to the cliffs again. He tells himself that she has Jet so she will be fine. 

She has Jet so he, himself won’t be fine. 

It is both reassuring and sickening to imagine her seeking Jet out for comfort.

And what if she doesn’t visit again? What if she only sends Zuko or his sister? He wants to take back that resentful laugh. That grudging remark. He was scared. He  _ is  _ scared. Anxious and in pain and he doesn’t know how the hell he is going to get on another boat. Doesn’t know how he is going to find it in him to readjust to life on the mainland. 

He just knows that he doesn’t want to do it alone. 

Of course, Azula had tried to move on. She didn’t want to do it alone. She said as much.

She shouldn’t have had to do it alone. 

He shouldn’t have to do it alone. 

But his hospital room is empty a half an hour before visiting hours are over. 


	26. Blister

He is almost terrified to see her again. He shouldn’t be, what he should be is excited. Excited that he is still in a bed on dry land with his--is she still his girlfriend?--on her way. Or maybe she isn’t on her way, she might just send her brother or his sister. The heart monitor beeps and drones, oblivious to the ache in the heart that it watches over. 

He hears footsteps and his heart quickens. It is only a nurse. He hears them again some forty minutes later. Again his heart quickens and once more as Azula slips into her usual chair. “I was thinking of bringing Jet along and then I thought better of it.” She pauses. “But one day all three of us…” he wants to interject but he knows better. “Will have to talk.”

Sokka doesn’t think that she is wrong. His heart begins to settle. A talk means that there are things to discuss. And if there are things to discuss then she hasn’t written him off. “It must have been lonely.” He starts. “I get. Trust me, I do. Chimps aren’t very good conversationalists, but they do have a sense of humor.” 

“In other words, you found your true family?” 

“Apparently starfish have a sense of humor too.” 

She smiles.

“I tried to think of you guys whenever I saw a fish, but I kept forgetting who was what fish.” 

“You mean you didn’t bring your cheat sheet?”

He resists the urge to make a poorly timed joke about cheating on him. She waits a few moments and he curses at his missed opportunity when she mutters, “because I didn’t and Jet was the first name on it.”

“I know that you were just joking,” he begins. “But you didn’t cheat. You thought that I was gone. I was gone.” 

“I should have waited longer. Until after this trip.” 

“I don’t know. From the story you told me, it sounded like you needed somebody.”

“Yes.” She pauses. “But I had Zuzu and your sister…”

“That’s a little different than a romance, wouldn’t you say?” 

“It is, yes.” 

She grows quiet and he lifts a hand to stroke her cheek. He can’t remember the last time he has had the opportunity to do so. Can’t remember the last time that he has heard her soft, happy hum. He is in a hospital bed but he feels like he is home. He holds his and still and cupped against her cheek. 

**.oOo.**

Azula isn’t sure that she is supposed to, but she climbs into the bed and lays next to him. It has been too long. She would much rather be in laying on the bed in her room with the wind propped open and a breeze wafting through, carrying on it, the sound of crashing waves and gull cries. She can’t be too picky though, all things considered. 

She can’t exactly wrap her arms around him, being as she is laying on the good one and the injured one is still confined by the sling. It is probably for the best, she can’t imagine that it would be good to put any extra pressure on his blisters, even if they are healing. 

She sits up, having another more practical idea. She washes her hands and finds the salve that the nurses usually rub onto his back. “Sit up.” 

He does as instructed and she carefully spreads the salve over his back. At the largest and worst of the blisters, he flinches. Admittedly she keeps forgetting to warn him first. It is just as well, she will never get through the process if she does. She remembers when he’d fallen from his bike in their haste to get away from what turned out to be a not-so-abandoned seaside shack. Every time she hovered the alcohol wipe over the scrape his face would comedically bunch up and he’d tell her, “no wait! I’m not ready!” 

“Ow!” He hisses for the fifth time. “How would you like it if I just stung you without warning?”

“Would you be doing it to clean a cut?” 

“Yes.”

“Then I would like it very much.” She replies, dabbing at a final blister. “It is better to get it over with.”

“Or we can delay it a little and…” 

“Savor the pain slowly?” She asks. “The more you hesitate, the longer it will take.” She draws back and reaches for the salve. “Your record was two hours and twenty-four minutes.” 

“Lets go for three.” He grumbles. 

“Yes, let’s go for three.” She agrees. She doesn’t tell him that she had been speaking in terms of minutes, though he catches on fairly quickly. He makes a point of letting out exaggerated moans of pain. So much so that the nurse comes in and scolds her for hurting him and then lectures him for ‘joking around like that, this is serious stuff!’

They wait for her to leave to begin laughing. It is just like when they were children. If she ignores the heart monitors and the smell of antiseptics, she can almost pretend like nothing has changed at all. 

Their laughter dies down and she twists the cap back onto the salve as he lays back. They are quiet for some time. She doesn’t think that she has to, and really, she only asks for the sake of formality. “You aren’t angry about Jet?

He chuckles again. “I feel like Jet is the one who should be mad.”

“He is.” She confirms with a slight tickling in her belly.

“He’s been spending all of his time in the hotel hot tub listening to depressing rock ballads. And then he goes back to the hotel room and goes to sleep.”

“He doesn’t like rock?”   
  


“Exactly.” She sighs. “He hasn’t talked to me. He hasn’t talked to Zuzu either. Your sister has been listening to him talk for hours.” 

“She’s nice like that.” 

“At least he has someone.” Even still, she feels horrible. There is a part of her that feels guilty for feeling so elated when he is miserable. It almost feels as though she has sacrificed his happiness for her own. But she can’t imagine that he won’t find someone else, he is a charming boy. “I think that he just needs to get back home.” 

“He isn’t the only one.” 

“You’re parents are in for a horrible surprise.”

“Horrible!? They’re going to be thrilled to have me back.” 

He gives a soft jolt at the opening of the door. “Visiting hours are up.”

Azula nods. “I’ll bring Katara along tomorrow, she could use a break from Jet.” She leans over and kisses the tip of his nose.

“You missed my lips.”

“Lip kisses are for people who don’t whine and take fifteen minutes to have their blisters cleaned.” She flashes him a smirk before closing the door behind her. She thinks that she will go down to the beach today, she will invite Jet along to talk over smoothies and fries. 


	27. The Missed Catches

_ The sky was a watercolor backdrop of searing oranges and yellows and pastel pink. Against it, holding a surfboard was a petite silhouette. “She’s too small to be any good.” Chan remarked.  _

_ “I thought that it was the other way around, dude.” Ruon Jian shrugged.  _

_ “Maybe if you have the right size surfboard. That one’s too big for her.” _

_ To this Ruon had nodded in agreement. It didn’t bother Jet like it bothered the rest of the team. Chan and his girlfriend were particularly annoyed by the mistake. They could tell that she was new to the sport, unlike themselves. They have been doing it since childhood.  _

_ Truth be told, they were afraid of her. Afraid that her mistakes would cost their team a victory that they hadn’t even had a chance to begin working towards. That first practice was a mess. Jet had watched her rather closely; every time she lost balance and every time she charged towards the wave too early or too late. She never seemed to have them timed right, could never seem to sense the water in the way a seasoned surfer would. She just didn’t have the connection.  _

_ She took a deep breath. It was an hour and a half into a three hour long practice and she had yet to pull off even the most basic maneuver. But more than anything, Azula wanted to make her father proud. Truthfully, she had come to decide, within the first twenty minutes, that she hated surfing. It didn’t come naturally to her as volleyball did. She was furious with herself for having missed volleyball tryouts in favor of trying something new.  _

_ She could have been on her way to becoming the star athlete of the middle school team. She could have been an hour and a half into praise and cheers. Instead her teammates were glaring at her. Even the coach’s formerly sympathetic eyes were clouding with impatience. She knew that he’d only let her on the team because of her father and his father’s legacy.  _

_ She also knew that it was becoming abundantly clear that she didn’t share the family talent. She cast one more forlorn and longing glance at the volleyball in her sports bag before closing her eyes, readying her surfboard, and dashing towards the water.  _

_ This time she was going to do it. She knew that she had timed the wave right. If only she had timed throwing her surfboard down correctly. Another wave took the board out from under her feet.  _

_ No one bothered to tell her that she was supposed to go belly down and paddle out to the wave.  _

_ Not even the coach.  _

_ She was never one to quit. The only thing more dishonorable than a failure was a quitter. She would ride the failure out and probably with more success than riding any wave. A week into her new sport and she was only just starting to catch onto paddling out. _

_ Azula was certain that balance wouldn’t be a problem. Toph had been kind enough to let her borrow her skateboard. The way she and Toph saw it, skateboarding was basically surfboarding without water. She did just fine maintaining her balance on the skateboard and by the end of the night she was even doing some decent tricks.  _

_ So why the hell couldn’t she catch onto surfing? _

_ She came to find that it was a simple as not being able to catch a wave. As simple as not knowing what to do when she finally did. She knew that once she figured out how to pop up that she would be able to stay standing and ride it out, but the waves were relentless and knocked her into the blue before she had a chance.  _

_ Three days into week two was when she finally broke down. She was crying on Sokka’s bed about how Zuzu was mad at her for trying to one up him and how it wasn’t worth it because she wasn’t even good. How she wished she would have just gone for volleyball.  _

_ He treated her to ice cream that she didn’t think she deserved, but Kya had insisted and Hakoda and Katara made it special. _

_ Jet watched her cross the beach. “I’m surprised she’s even showing up still.” Chan’s girlfriend had commented.  _

_ “I wouldn’t if I was that awful.” Ruon noted.  _

_ “I wonder if her dad beats her for not being able to carry on the family legacy.” Jet didn’t know the girl’s name but even Chan looked at her and muttered, “too far.” Jet might have slapped her if he didn’t have a moral code.  _

_ Azula held her head as high as she could for how many times the waves pulled it under. She had enough grace, he could see it in the way she paddled, the way she cut seamlessly through the waves. He could tell that she was getting used to timing and catching the waves. But she never managed to fully stand up and the one time she did, she hadn’t known what to do next.  _

_ He watched her drag herself and her board back to shore. Long locks of hair hung down her back, shimmering in the setting sun. She wore a seashell bracelet around her slender wrist. Her skin was tanned nicely and her eyes reflected the sunlight so well.  _

_ The rest of the team called her the weak link but he called her beautiful.  _

_ The rest of the team called her the weak link but he called her untrained.  _

_ He spent his entire weekend doing what their coach should have done. And she caught on fast. Who would have thought that actually teaching her what to do would have made such a significant difference. _

_ When Monday came around, she walked onto the beach with a surfboard fitted to her smaller stature and a more confident stride.  _

_ If she could have some success with a board that was not properly sized, she could do wonders with this board.  _

_ For the first time she’d managed to catch a wave. Albeit, not on her first or even fourth try. But ten minutes in, she caught one and rode it out. Practices went that much smoother, she was beginning to learn and perform the basics.  _

_ It wasn’t the remarkable and impressive transformation she had hoped for. _

_ It was so ordinary.  _

_ But it was enough to bring her from dead last to third from the bottom--and on a good night, four away from it. _

_ The season had ended and she vowed to do volleyball next year. But the next year rolled around and her teammates were disappointed to see her dragging her board up the beach.  _

_ A summer practicing with Jet and Sokka had done wonders.  _

_ Chan, his now ex-girlfriend, Ruon, and the rest of the team hadn’t been there to see her practice. It was just as well. It was more satisfying.  _

_ She went first. Her paddling was stronger, her carves smoother, her balance expectedly impeccable. She pulled off her first roundhouse cutback. _

_ Azula was a thrill for Jet to watch, she always was. That determined and driven look and the victorious one that usually followed. They were stunning. She was stunning. Especially now that confidence was thrown into the mix. He more than admired her haughty stride back up the beach and past the rest of the team, “you’re up Chan.” _

**.oOo.**

Azula takes Sokka’s hand and they slowly pad along the sand. He is so close to the sea that almost took him and yet he grins, wide and beaming. It is probably because he is with her. He stops to brush the hair out of her face. 

He leans in for his kiss only to get a mouthful of hair courtesy of the wind throwing it back across her face. He sweeps it aside again and this time she holds it back. 

She closes her eyes and tilts her head up, she looks serene and blissful. 

It makes him want to hurl.

Jet turns away before their lips make contact. With more force than necessary, he takes another bite of his chili dog. He doesn’t even like chili! Yet the flavor is still more pleasant than the look of Sokka locking lips with his ex.

He feels bad for feeling so appalled considering how much less tense she is, but it hits him quite mercilessly that he could have never made her feel that way. If only he’d met her first. If only he had been the childhood friend. 

If only he’d asked her for a date when he’d first had the urge. That day when he saw her silhouetted against the sunset with a surfboard in hand. 

Maybe if he’d held her a little closer when teaching her to balance. Maybe if he’d cheered her on a little more, she would have asked him. 

Maybe he would be walking down the beach with her. Instead he finds himself furious. After everything he’d done for her, she’d snub him like this? It was he who helped her work from no skill whatsoever to the surfer that the rest of the team strived to be. 

He helped get her through the past few months of summer and now she was ignoring him more or less completely.

“Still brooding?” Katara asks. 

He takes another angry munch of his chili dog. 

“Why are you watching them make out if it makes you angry?”

He thinks that maybe he wants to be angry because that is better than feeling let down, used, and miserable. “Maybe if I watch hard enough, she’ll see my charm and makeout with me instead.” He mutters.

“Ew.” Zuko grumbles. Apparently the concept of it is enough to drive him right back to the smoothie bar. Granted, he makes a similar face when he gets within sound range of the couple. Jet swears that if Sokka had the strength, he would quite literally lift her off of her feet. 

Thankfully he is still too weary for that and has to settle for a careful hug. “I’m going to go share a smoothie with Zuko, you want anything?” Katara offers.

He shakes his head. 

“You sure? We’re going to be heading back tomorrow, so now’s your last chance to have one.” 

“I’m sure.” 

He hears that light and warm laugh and frowns deeper. He wants to be happy for Azula, he truly does. But he can’t force happiness. He hears the shifting of sand and a shadow falls over him. 

“Exactly how long do you plan on staring at my daughter for?” 

Jet tenses up. He gives his body enough slack to muster up a single shrug. “Until she stops being so annoyingly beautiful, I guess.” He, to Ozai’s dissatisfaction, slips up. 

“If that is the only reason you are upset to have lost her, than you didn’t deserve her.” 

He wonders how many times Sokka was told that he wasn’t good enough for Azula, if he had been told at all. “It isn’t. It’s just the easiest reason to explain.” 

When the girl’s father doesn’t respond, he continues. “She’s talented and clever. She’s…” his mind wanders back to the stormy beach. “Strong and determined. I think that she might be unstoppable…”

Ozai nods. “Even so. You knew what this trip was about when you stepped aboard the ship. It is not her fault that you were not prepared for the outcome.” He pauses and clasps his hands behind his back, fixing Jet with a stern look. “If you trouble her over her decision, I assure you that there will be a free spot on your surf team.”

Jet suppresses a scowl. The old man did more to hurt his daughter than Jet himself could ever hope to do and he had half the mind to inform him of such. He curbs his tongue. “I don’t want to hurt her.” But he wishes that she wouldn’t hurt him. “Should I talk to her?”

Ozai shakes his head. “Unless it is about surfing or another mundane topic. She will speak to you about it when she is ready.”

Jet sighs and rests his chin in his hands as Ozai makes his way towards the smoothie bar. He feels as out of place as Azula must have while carrying a surfboard much too large for her. He doesn’t belong on this trip. With this family. 

Azula leads Sokka back to their beach towel and, in the shade of their umbrella, begins unpacking lunch. It probably has all of Sokka’s favorites. 

He hears the sand sift again and the clunk of a glass on the wooden table. “There’s a shot of rum in yours. Don’t you dare mention it to anyone on this beach.” 

Jet takes his beverage and sipis it. “And yours.”

Ozai holds out his receipt. There is only one alcoholic drink and Jet can taste the rum on his. 

“You could use a drink, boy.”

Azula settles into Sokka’s arms and Jet can’t disagree. 


	28. Subtle Unfamiliarity

For someone who wears a sling, Azula is strangely unintimidated by the prospect of going back to sea. Sokka isn’t particularly surprised though, she always has been the resilient sort. The type to brush things off and get back to whatever task she had been doing before tragedy struck. It is one of the things that had drawn him to her in the first place. 

If he isn’t mistaken he would say that she is rather eager to get back to sailing. 

He can think of several other things that he’d rather be doing. “Wouldn’t it be quicker to just take a plane back home.” 

Azula tilted her head, “we can’t just leave the boat.”

“I dunno, that thing looks pretty banged up, I’m sure that you guys could get a newer and better one.”

“Sokka, it’s not even our boat.” Zuko points out. “We’re borrowing it from that ex-pirate who runs the town bar.”

Sokka cocks his head. “Why would he lend you a boat?”

“He and dad have gotten close.”

Sokka furrows his brows. 

Azula sighs and scans the beach for her Ozai before whispering, “I already told you about father’s drinking problem.”

He flushes as the pieces click. “Oh, yeah. Bars. Drinking. Talking to the bar owner.” 

Azula swats him, “not so loud!”

“Ow! Blisters!” 

Azula rolls her eyes. “Your days of being babied are over!” She declares. “And besides, most of your blisters are gone now anyways, you’re just trying to get special treatment.”

“And that takes the attention away from you?” He quirks a brow and gestures to her arm.

“I,” she draws the syllable out, “am not complaining.”

“Hey, Sokka!” Katara calls. “I found a piece of your raft.” She holds up a bright yellow strip. 

“Anyways, I still think that we should travel by plane. Ozai and Jet can sail the boat back and the rest of us will meet him there.”

Azula fixes him with a dull stare. “Sokka, that’s a terrible idea.”

Looking equally as unentertained, Zuko adds, “I’m not going to leave my father unattended.”

“And your father isn’t going to leave you unattended either.” He mutters. “Not after the fiasco with the souvenir shop.” 

Zuko flushes, “that wasn’t even my idea.” He flicks his gaze to his sister. 

She gives one of her faux innocent stares. “I can’t do much damage like this.” She strokes her sling. 

“It only takes one hand to pop several blisters.” Sokka grumbles. 

“Gross, Sokka!” Katara exclaims. 

“Our luggage is on the ship.” Ozai remarks.

“What about Jet?” Katara asks. 

“He has been on the ship avoiding me.” Azula crosses her arms. 

Sokka can hear the hurt in her voice but she says nothing more of it. He feels another onslaught of guilt for finding relief in Jet’s avoidance. If he is angry with Azula, then he won’t have to worry about the other boy getting in the way of things. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times Azula assures him that she has chosen him over Jet, he still can’t shake away the paranoia. He isn’t sure how close she had gotten to Jet and he is afraid to ask. 

Just as he can’t shake his dread of the sea. 

“Come on, Sokka. Everyone else is on board.” Her touch is much gentler this time, less playful. 

“I’d really rather…”

“Take a plane. You’ve said so.” She nods. “It’ll be fine, we got here in one piece.” He doesn’t miss the split second glance she makes at the sail. It might be that he is over thinking things, but he has a suspicion that there was a mishap with that sail. “And you won’t be alone this time if we get lost.”

“Unless…” he lifts a pointer, “we get separated by a storm.” 

“We’ll be fine, Sokka.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it would be absurd for the universe to hand you back if it was just going to kill you a few weeks later. Why would it when it could have just killed you in that storm?” She shrugs.

“Gee. That’s reassuring.” He rubs the back of his head. Her humor has always been somewhat dark but her delivery has never been this dry. Dry to the point where he thinks that she is only half joking. It is just one more glimpse into the damage he has done in disappearing for so long. 

And then it dawns upon him--and he swallows a lump in his throat--that in the time that he had left, she has changed. It wouldn’t make sense if she didn’t. But what if she has changed into someone that he doesn’t particularly love...could she have changed that much?

Could he have changed as well?

“Come on, Sokka.” She says softly, more sympathetically. “I have something for you.” 

He bites his cheek. There really is no sense in drawing this out, he knows that he is getting on the boat one way or another. It is probably better to spare himself of Azula fetching her father to carry him aboard kicking and screaming. He also can’t deny that she has piqued his curiosity. 

He follows her onto the ship. It  _ is  _ a lot sturdier than his was. And bigger.

“Khozen says that this ship has survived a few decades of storms.” Azula points out as she leads him below deck and to the cabins. “And, just so you know, we tested that. Overall, it is a well built ship.” She sits down upon what he assumes is her bed and she pats the spot next to her. 

He takes a seat. He looks the girl up and down as she shuffles around a suitcase. Now that the novelty is wearing off he is noticing more things. More changes; mostly his gaze is glued to the scar on her chin. He wishes he didn’t, but every time he sees it he imagines her with cloudy eyes and none of that fiery spirit standing at the edge of a cliff. 

He sees a different person entirely. A more dismal person. 

The real Azula is much different than the one in his mind’s eye. She is grinning, holding something behind her back. “I’ll give you three guess. If you don’t get it then you don’t get the thing that I am holding.”

Some of his anxieties wash away as a memory drives the darker images out of his mind. Now he is picturing a much smaller Azula with big eyes, chubby cheeks, and a missing front tooth. 

He can’t quite get the voice right in his head, but he remembers her declaring, “what am I holding, Sokka!? If you get it right, you get a prize.” She only gave him unlimited guesses because she knew that hadn’t stood a chance. Usually with this game, other kids held was coin or a toy. Azula...she was always different. After guessing, “a coin? A stick of gum? A dollar bill? Five dollars!? A rubber duck…” She held out her fist and opened it to reveal a cherry pit. 

So that is what he goes with, “it’s a cherry pit, isn’t it?”

She shakes her head. “Good guess, but now.”

“A pumpkin seed?”

Azula rolls her eyes. “Pumpkins aren’t in season.”

Her eyes, they are the same, but they are different. He thinks that they aren’t so care free anymore. There is a knowingness to them. A hardness that goes beyond any physical changes. 

And there are plenty of those too. He had expected her to have grown taller, but she really hasn’t. But her face has lost a little more of its softness, he thinks that her cheekbones are more pronounced. He thinks that her muscles are more defined...that would explain the iron grip that she’d had on him. 

She wears her hair differently too, it is somewhat more tousled and is no longer bound up. 

“Stop thinking so much and just start throwing guesses. I’ll give you a hint.”

Sokka pretends like that is what he had been thinking about. “Shoot.” He forces a smile.

“It has seen better days, but it’s still kind of cute.” She pauses. “Sort of like you.”

His smile becomes more genuine and he tries not to laugh. “It’s my clownfish isn’t it?”

Azula blinks before chucking it at him. “You cheated.”

“It isn’t my fault that you gave such an obvious hint.”

She turns her head and folds her good arm against the other. “That was a pity hint.” He is glad that she does. It reassures him that she is still there. Even if her eyes are more tired, even if her body bares the scars of a rough period, her smile is still the same. Her mannerisms are the same. 

He puts the stuffed clownfish to the side and puts an arm around her. He can’t fault her for her changes, not when she has probably observed some within him.

**.oOo.**

He has lost his spunk. 

His adventurous spirit.

The ocean stole that from him and dragged it to its depths alongside his cargo.

His posture isn’t quite right. At first she thinks that it is because he is physically frailer. The doctors had warned that it might take several months for him to re-attain a healthy body weight. And that it might take longer for the patches of discolored skin to even out again. 

But they hadn’t warned her that his mind might be frailer. Though she thinks that it was probably implied. He still jokes and quips. He still makes her laugh. But he always seems weary and on edge. As though the sea will flood and snatch him back from wherever he stands. 

Azula can’t hold it against him. She can’t imagine it is all too different from the fragility that had gripped her own mind some time back. She lets him hold her but she feels as though she should be holding him. 

“When did you start wearing your hair down?” He had inquired a few hours ago.

“I think the month after you left.”

“Why?”

She hadn’t had the heart to tell him that it was because she had simply stopped seeing the point in putting so much effort in. Instead she told him that she needed change, and it wasn’t a complete lie. It was simply a small fragment of a whole truth. 

“When did you decide to grow a beard?” She had tried to lighten her own mood.

“It wasn’t a decision.” They both laughed at this. And just as she had begun to stop laughing, he flared his nostrils and gave his beard a few pretentious strokes. “Do you fancy it m’lady?” 

“You’re shaving tomorrow.” Secondhand embarrassment had spread color upon her cheeks.

The conversation had died away three hours ago. She pretends to be asleep, she isn’t sure if he wants to be caught crying. She wonders if she should get Katara, it seems somehow more appropriate to have a sister comforting a brother. That is how it has always been between she and Zuko. 

Azula looks at the bed over. Katara is sleeping soundly. Pictures of events that Sokka has missed are still sprawled out on her nightstand. One by one Katara had been going through them, catching Sokka up on everything. 

Azula doesn’t know how the pair had spent the alone time she’d given them, but Katara had went to bed extra cheerful. 

“When did you wake up?” Sokka asks as he wipes his eyes.

“A few minutes ago, I guess.” 

“Oh.”

  
“Why are you crying?”

She notices that he is shaking and comes to a few conclusions. The boat rolls and bobs as it makes its way through the waves. “The ocean is very calm tonight. Do you want to go on deck?”

He shakes his head abruptly. “I don’t like how open it is.” 

Azula nods. She takes his hand. She could tell him that it really isn’t that bad, but what good would that do? It would only be entirely dismissive. And a simple, ‘it’s going to be okay’ seems insufficient. Instead she says, “you were strong enough to find sleep on an unstable raft, you’re strong enough to get used to this.”

Though she thinks that these words might only be comforting to her. 

She thinks that words might not mean much at all right now. Her grip simply needs to be stronger than the pull of the sea. So she holds him close and waits for his anxious trembles to pass.

If he falls asleep in her arms then she will just deal with the earful that her father will give her. 

“You used to love the ocean. You can’t fear it now.” She tries. “You beat it. You shouldn’t fear something that you have defeated.” 


	29. A Storm Cloud On A Sunny Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, I'm starting a new job soon--granted it's only part-time, thanks covid--so updates might not be as regular or follow a particular scheduled.

She shoos Sokka away before her father can make a fuss. She has to give the boy props, he handles it with the twinkle of humor that she expects from him, “I’d climb out the window, but you know…” 

Azula rolls her eyes. “Just hurry back to the other cabinet and pretend like we didn’t spend the night together.”

“Oh yeah, because we got real raunchy with Katara sleeping over there.” He wriggles his brows. 

She nudges him. 

“How about this, how about we just walk out of this cabin and pretend like I just knocked and asked if you were awake yet?”

“But father…”

“Still over thinking things? Guess it’s good to know that some things are still the same.” He takes her hand. “Come on.” She lets him lead her out of the cabin. “Besides, I don’t think that your dad will get too angry over something so small.” 

“I suppose, not.” She pauses. “It’s Jet that we have to worry about.”

She tightens her grip on his hand, if only for the sake of doing so. Two weeks in and she still feels as though it is some kind of illusion, just like those phantom sails. Maybe if she grips tightly enough she will be reassured that he is real.

She is sure that someone would have told her if she were just talking to herself this whole time. 

“Can we sit in the shade?” Sokka asks. 

“I like the sun.”

He points to a few remaining blisters and the discolored patches of skin.

She rolls her eyes. “Sorry, I forgot that you have baby skin now. Make yourself comfortable, I’m going to say good morning to father.”

**.oOo.**

Sokka finds himself the shadiest spot on deck and peers out at the rushing waters. The day cloudy and somewhat cool, a few seagulls zip by. He looks at the ocean, its waters are calm. He almost calls for Azula to come back. Instead he balls his fists and forces him to stare at the waves. She will be back soon. But not soon enough, he can tell that she is having a conversation with her father. 

He thinks of approaching Zuko and Katara, but they are much too close to the railings for comfort. Even if they weren’t, Zuko has his arm slung over Katara’s shoulder and they are doing that thing again...the thing where he gazes down at her and she looks up at him and their eyes sparkle.

Katara has made a very clear rule about this. Even after so long away he can very clearly hear her whining, “stop being annoying and overbearing! When I’m with Zuko, we need  _ alone  _ time.” 

He doesn’t have such rules with Azula. He is fine with Katara intruding and he thinks that Azula finds humor in Zuko walking in on them locking lips. His expressions are usually exaggeratedly humorous. 

Though he thinks that circumstances might have changed. He can’t imagine her brushing him off at the moment. She turns around and her expression brightens. “Sokka! You’re awake!” She turns back to Zuko. “Can you go check on breakfast? Sokka usually likes it first thing when he gets up.”

Zuko nods and makes his way below deck while Katara comes and finds a spot next to him. “Why don’t you come and sit at one of the tables?”

“Too much sunlight.” 

“Too much sunlight?”

Azula sniffs. “Hasn’t he told you yet?”

Katara’s brows furrow. “Tell me what?”

“He found an island full of vampire chimps and one of them bit him.” 

“They would have never bit me!” He throws his hands up. 

“So it was the mosquitoes then?” 

“Vampire mosquitoes?” Katara crinkles her nose. 

“He had a really rough time.” Azula shrugs. “Come on, just sit in the sun for breakfast and then we can go hide in the cabins. I’ll even sit in front of you and block the sunlight.”

He bursts out laughing. “I think that, that only works if the one blocking the sun is taller than the one being shielded.” 

Azula’s eyes narrow and she half pouts, “fine. You’re on your own then.” 

He stands up and brushes his hand against her cheek. Heaven knows that he missed this kind of banter, missed that pout, those eyes. Missed Katara’s soft giggle. More than anything though, he is thankful for one more small reassurance that she hasn’t changed too much, even if she seems to have matured several years in the span of a few months. “Alright, we can sit at the tables for a bit.”

She gives a smug smile and hustles him towards the tables. Ten minutes later he is thrilled to see a plate of eggs and a sausage patty. And the good homemade kind too, not the cardboard tasting hospital sort. 

“Not so fast!” Katara reaches for his hand. “Your doctors said that you should still eat slow, your body is still…”

He sighs, “in starvation mode, I know.” 

**.oOo.**

She catches him glaring from across the boat. She doesn’t have to look up to know that he is. It is quite a palpable feeling. Normally she request a polite, ‘can you perhaps knock it the hell off please?’ Instead, she looks up from her plate and asks, “why don’t you come sit with us, Jet?”

“So I can watch the two of you getting all...” he shudders and sticks his tongue out like a child.

Azula rolls her eyes. “We really should talk. All three of us.”

“What’s there to y’all about? You love him more. He’s back. I was just a placeholder.”

“You weren’t just a placeholder.” Azula assures as gently as she can, albeit she isn’t a particularly gentle person. “I really was planning on moving on with you. Taking you to the homecoming dance…” she trails off, realizing too late that it would only make things worse to prattle on about what could have been.

“In other words, I’m the second choice?” He stands. “Got it. Because that’s  _ much  _ better.”

Louder than necessary, he pushes in his chair and makes his way towards the cabins. Azula inhales deeply. She supposed that she should just be thankful to have Sokka again. She’s rather lose Jet to hurt feelings than Sokka to death.

“He’ll come around.”

“I hope that he does.”

The sulk in his posture puts a tint over Azula’s happiness. The cabin door closes rather noisily.

“Well that was dramatic.”

“Shut up Zuzu.” She snaps. “You’re pretty dramatic yourself!”

“I’m sticking up for you!”

But it was she who made the first cut. She who did the hurting and heart crushing. “You shouldn’t.” Is all that she says. “I don’t need you to.”

“Whatever.” He grumbles. “I thought that you’d be in a better mood once Sokka got back.”

Azula’s mood plummeted further. “I am.”

Sokka laughs, “you’re really selling it.”

Her expression must be betraying her, or maybe it is that she is gripping her cup and peering into it as though it has some sort of answer, because Sokka’s laughter fades and his expression changes from one brand of soft to another.

He rubs her back, between her shoulder blades just like he used to. Like he had the day her mother died and like he did when they stood before the coffin for one final viewing. Azula wishes that she hadn’t gone to it. But she knows that it would do her mother no justice if she shied away from her at the last moment. 

“Geez, I didn’t think an expression could get any darker.” Zuko mutters. “And you just called me…”

Katara lifts a hand. “Not now, Zuko. What are you thinking about?” 

“Nevermind.” Azula mutters. “I’m going to go give father a break from steering.” 


	30. The Sea Shifts

At first glance it is all the same, he almost thinks that he might have been overthinking things. The water still laps at the aged wood of the boardwalk. The ferris wheel upon the boardwalk still circles. The Sea Candle still casts its beam over the waves. 

Azula smiles at the familiar sight of it. He thinks that it must be exhilarating to have a beacon cast by her own home, lovingly guide her back to it. It is jubilant for him even if it isn’t his home. It stands upon the cliffside, proud as ever. 

Ozai steers the ship towards the strip of sand just on the other side of the cliff. The same sand that Azula had shoveled into his face while making sand castles. The same sand he and Katara used to throw at each other during childhood arguments. The same sand that his family always picniced on. 

Sokka’s heart swells. 

His family.

Kya. 

Hakoda. 

The restaurant. 

“Welcome home, Sokka.” Azula murmurs. She rolls her eyes, “you’re really crying?”

“It was only one tear.” He brushes it away. 

“I can’t wait to show you the restaurant!” Katara grins. 

Admittedly his legs are wobbly with nerves as his feet meet the sand. 

“Now listen, boy.” Ozai starts. “You’re going to get one final night of peace. By tomorrow word is going to spread that you’re back and there are going to be news crews up and down the streets. It’s better to just ignore them all together if you want any peace. When most of them leave, pick one station to share your story with.”

Sokka blinks. “Uh...sure.” He rubs the back of his head. 

Ozai gives him a firm pat on the shoulder. “Zuko, Jet, help me unload.”

“I think that I’m just going to head home.” Jet grumbles. Sokka notices the cross stare he gives Azula as he hoists his luggage over his shoulder and stomps up the beach. 

“There’s a mood killer.” Zuko snatches the first suitcase. 

Azula shakes her head. “Not this time. I’ll worry about him later. Let’s just get everything unloaded so we can drive to La-bsters.”

Sokka takes as many suitcases and bags as he can carry, he is more than itching to see his parents again. “I miss them.” He says. 

“Well of course.” Azula replies as she sets her final suitcase down. “I know that they’ve missed you.” 

He takes a moment to breathe and it smells the same. The lighthouse smells exactly as it always has, like spices and smoke. Albeit the scents are duller with the family having been away for some time. But it is still there, the smell is still there. 

“You guys moved the sofa.”

“Yeah, we needed something to block the door with.” Zuko shrugs. 

At his puzzled look, Azula clarifies, “there was a bad storm and the door wouldn’t stop swinging open. Zuzu and I were pretty sure that we put everything back where it had been…”

Sokka shakes his head. “Nope, that sofa was over there more.” He points. “And you call yourself a perfectionist.”

Azula rolls her eyes. “I call you an ass.”

“Thank you for taking care of the lighthouse while we were gone.” Sokka hears from the other room. “Your ship is docked on the beach.” 

“Aye. Any time, lad.” Khozen emerges from the kitchen. As he leaves, he tips his hat to Sokka. “Good to see a fine sailor home at last. You’re gonna get some repute with the lads.” 

“Uh...thanks.” Sokka smiles. 

**.oOo.**

“Can we stop for some ice cream?” Sokka asks. 

“Sokka, we need to go home.” Katara says as Azula replies, “I wouldn’t mind making an extra stop.”

“We need to go see mom and dad! And we don’t know if you’re supposed to be eating ice cream so soon.”

“Oh come on, Katra, one cone won’t hurt. I can even split it with Azula.”

“And we’re going to have to watch?” Zuko crinkles his nose. 

“It will be like last summer when we all got a cone and walked along the boardwalk.” Azula tries. “We didn’t get to go for our end of summer ice cream run so why not go for a welcome home treat?”

Sokka slings his arm around her. “I vote yes. It’ll be fun. Plus, Hama probably misses my face.” 

“It will also be a good time to show Sokka the new boardwalk.”

“New boardwalk?” He inquires with mild dismay.

“It’s only partly new.” Azula clarifies. “The storm I told you about earlier did some damage. The town had to have it repaired and I think that they might be extending the boardwalk a little.”

“It was fine the way it was!”

“Things change Sokka. They have to.” 

**.oOo.**

But it doesn’t mean that he has to like it. Somehow, he always just assumed that they wouldn’t. That their little town was so small and removed from the rest of the world, that it wouldn’t have to. That it could just lounge on the shore like a languid tourist, suspended in time.

Again he finds himself looking Azula over. He wonders if he still knows her. He wonders even as she orders the same flavor of ice cream that she always does; strawberry with strawberry syrup and a helping of nuts. 

“Are you going to split this with me or are you going to get your own?”

“Double fudge with chocolate chips and sprinkles?” Hama chuckles. 

“You remember?”

“Of course I remember. I’ve been serving you double fudge since you were a tot.” The old woman croaks. 

“Thanks Hama, but I was going to share with Azula this time.”

“He’s not supposed to be eating ice cream right now.” Katara rolls her eyes and takes a plain chocolate cone. 

“Ah. Well I hope that you recover quickly.” She turns to Zuko, “and vanilla chocolate swirl with a hidden cherry.”

Zuko nods. 

It feels almost like old times. Zuko and Katara walk with their hands linked, licking at their cones, trying to catch drips before they fall. It is a bid harder to walk hand in while trying to share a cone. Eventually Azula mutters, “how’s this, I’ll take a bite and then I’ll hold it out for you?”

It seemed like a solid plan to him. She always has a plan even for the most mundane things. He wishes that she would have gone sailing with him, maybe if he had her he wouldn’t have gotten himself stranded. He takes his lick.

“Really, Sokka? Save some of the toppings for me.” 

He steals an extra lick and more of the nuts. For his folly Azula doesn’t return the cone to him until she has the toppings all to herself. How can she be so the same, but so different? 

“Here it is!” Katara gestures to the boardwalk. 

“Where’s Mai’s jewelry shop?” 

“It was obliterated during the storm.” Azula shrugs. “They built a new one.” She points towards a more opulent looking rendition. A sparkling sea pearl amid older buildings. Quite literally, he realizes. The roof pebbled with shiny pearls, strands of them hang from the rafters. 

“What’s that?”

Zuko shrugs. “New restaurant, maybe? Could also be a souvenir shop.”

“It’s supposed to be an arcade!” Toph’s skateboard rolls to a stop and she kicks it up. “Sokka!” 

“You’re home!” Aang throws his arms around him. Toph reaches an arm out to hold him steady as his rollerskates nearly send both he and Sokka crashing to the ground. 

“Hey, maybe when it opens, we can make it our new after school hangout!” Toph suggests. 

“But what about dinner at the Cod Shack!?”

“We can go there after we play arcade games.” Aang suggests. 

“But it was always, school clubs and sports, then beach games or jetskiing with Mai and TyLee, and then cod shack!”

“Sokka, Toph and Aang are in high school now. I’m going to be starting my senior year. Zuzu is going to be going to college. You’re going to be going to college, even if you have to put it off until next year...”

“So?!”

“So, we’re all…” Azula pauses. “Moving forward. What’s wrong with swapping a few beach games for arcade games?”

He throws up his hands. “Tradition!”

  
“We’ve been doing the exact same stuff since we were kids.” Azula sighs.

“Exactly! Now you’re getting it!” He exclaims.

“But you aren’t, Sokka.” 

His stomach plummets. 

Zuko gives a soft smile, “what she means is that, it’s time to mix it up a little. A lot of stuff happened while you were gone...” 

He cups his hands over his ears, he doesn’t want to hear it. While he was floating stagnated on his raft they were all growing up, living life. And he had missed what might have been the last summer as he’d known it. And he isn’t ready. 

He isn’t ready to let go of that. 

He wanted to go sailing, on an adventure. But he’d embarked with a knowingness that he’d return to the same old comforting normalcy. 

“I think I’m gonna head home.” He doesn’t wait for a reply.

“Sokka!” Katara calls after him.


	31. Strange Seas

He doesn’t know her anymore. He doesn’t know her at all. It becomes apparent the longer he is home. The trivial, surface level things are the same; her dark sense of humor and borderline childish banter, their inside jokes, occasional references to the fish game, her interests and hobbies. 

But this is only when he doesn’t dig deep. In flashes he hears a deeper depth to her dark humor, a mature edge to it. Her childish banter has a harsher edge to it as well, intended or not. 

Her hobbies…

He remembers when she first started surfing. He remembers how she’d cried to him about how dreadful she was at it. He remembers attending her first competition where she was still making beginner’s errors. Sure she’d improved so drastically before he’d gone away. But this? This is different. 

He watches her weave seamlessly in and out of waves, doing tricks and maneuvers that he doesn’t have the surf lingo to name. Her stance is so bold and confident. 

And serious. 

The last time he’d seen her surf, her posture was lax and languid. Now she has a look of determination about her. A look that winning actually matters now. And he thinks that, to her, it does. 

At first things had been going well, he hadn’t even realized that the changes run that deep. He’d beaten the trio home. Kya had let an entire tray of fries, baked clams, burgers, and chicken wings clatter to the floor along with two blue raspberry slushies. And in an instant, probably the same one where the dinner plates clattered to the floor, his bleak mood had brightened. 

He was home, he was with his mother and father and everything was going to be perfectly okay.

“Sokka.” She squeaked. “Oh baby, you’re home. Hakoda, Hakoda! Sokka is home! Our baby  _ came home _ .” She was crying. Weeping openly but with the brightest smile he had ever seen. One of the brightest...equally as bright as the one he’d woken up to in the hospital. 

She had hugged him so, so tightly that his blisters hadn’t mattered. Discomfort and pain was buried good and well under mounds of love and doting. 

“Well, whaddya know?” His father chuckled. “Our sailor has come home. He knew that he had to make it back on time for the school year.” 

“Dad!” He had laughed. He’d looked up to see Katara in the doorway, her eyes bright and optimistic. 

“You’ll never guess what happened, dad!” Katara grins. “There was a storm and…”

“How about this? Your mom and I are going to close up early, cook the four of you the best dishes La-bster’s will ever serve and you can tell us all about the high seas.” He had turned to Sokka with a mischievous glimmer in his eye. “And I expect the best story from you or you’re grounded.” 

And by all things good and gracious, it had been the greatest meal. He doesn’t think that it was just that it had been his first home cooked meal in ages, but that it truly had been the best meal they’d prepared. And maybe that was because they’d cooked it with that much more attention and, dare he say, love. But he had scarfed it down at a rate his doctors would have killed him over. 

And as he did, Katara talked about her near death experience and about this strange cat lady and then she began talking about how Azula had rode in a helicopter to help rescue him. He didn’t think he had ever seen his girlfriend look so entirely pleased with herself. That was saying something because his girlfriend is a rather smug person overall. 

By that time his meal had been well and finished and it was his turn to share his story. As he relayed it, Hakoda and Kya served dessert that he was much too full for. It was rather nice to be able to say that he was stuffed after who knows how long he’d been starved. It was starting to feel normal again. 

Dinner had gone so well and watching movies in his bedroom with Azula was going to go so well too. 

It should have. 

He wishes it did. 

He should have known that things were going to turn for the worst when Azula inquired, “so what did you think?”

“Of what?” He had asked. 

“The new interior design. Zuzu and I helped your parents and Katara work on it.” 

And then he started to realize that even La-bsters changed. He hadn’t even noticed at first, he wouldn’t have if she would have just kept quiet. 

But she was just waving all of these new developments in his face. The rational side of him, knew that she was just excited to hear his opinion on her work; it was just one more achievement.

But the emotionally worn side of him was agitated. Agitated and provoked. She was waving accomplishment after accomplishment in his face and what could he say that he achieved? She was just trying to rouse him with change after change. He remembers muttering something akin to, “it’s fine.”

He remembers the disheartened look on her face. He remembers how she visibly pushed that aside and smiled at him. He remembers feeling like a total dick for having even thought about being angry with her. 

If only she hadn’t pushed. 

If only she hadn’t offered to help him ‘change up his room a little’.

He watches her step off of her surfboard. He hopes that delivering her a hand cooked meal will make up for having snapped at her. He watches her say her ‘see ya laters’ and observes her look of disappointment when Jet snubs the farewell. Sokka waits until Jet snatches his board and sulks off to say, “hey, I made you something.”

Azula frowns, with a newly removed sling, her crossed arms pack a sturdier punch. 

“I just got back and you’re already mad at me.”

“Don’t play that game with me, Sokka.” She snaps. “You’ve been back for two weeks, your ass pass has expired.” 

“Can I get it renewed?” 

He catches the faintest betrayal of a smile. 

“I can go out and get hit by a jetski or something.” 

Azula sighs and takes the food. “What is it?”

“Taste it and see.”

“Sokka, I am not the sort to take daring risks.”

He quirks a brow. “So jumping out of a helicopter in stormy waters was what exactly?”

“A calculated risk weighed by pros and cons of success.” 

He doesn’t call her on that she hadn’t recognized him at first. He gets the impression that she knows because she takes her first forkful without peeking under the tinfoil it is wrapped in. “Bacon for dinner?”

“Bacon at all hours.” 

**.oOo.**

Azula tries to maintain her smile. She is trying to maintain a lot. She is trying to cling to a lot. She is trying to grasp at the novelty of having found Sokka. A novelty that is quite abruptly wearing off. 

_ Bacon at all hours. _ He is still that goofy kid that she has always known. And maybe that is a good thing. Maybe it is she who is in the wrong for letting the world mold and harden her so. For letting it steal away the last remaining threads of childhood innocence. 

He is still Sokka, the same Sokka that she has always known. And she, herself? At her core, she is still her. She retains the frameworks and basics of who she used to be, but those aspects have evolved into something else. 

Something, perhaps, that Sokka can’t accept. 

Something that rifts them. 

She takes another bite of bacon. “Thanks for dinner, Sokka.”

“You’re still angry.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Sokka!” She grabs his hands. “I’m not. I promise. I’m just tired from practice.”

She knows that he knows that, that is bullshit. She is still the same, enough for him to know that much. But she is different enough to wonder if she could have outgrown him. 

She is beginning to think that, perhaps, saving him had been enough. That just knowing that he is alive and well is enough. That she can still have his friendship. 

And then what of Jet? Would he feel more or less used? Would he be thrilled to see she and Sokka grow distant?

She tries to force it out of her mind. They just need to get to know each other again. They just need to fill in the holes and adapted to how they’ve changed. She just fears that Sokka isn’t interested in embracing change. Even if that change is simply embracing who she has become.

Who he has become.


	32. Floatsam

They fight more often than not. Over the stupidest things. He invited her into his room again for some movies and story swapping. She makes the mistake of picking up one of his old, outgrown shirts and, with a laugh, asking if he really needs it still.

“Yes I need that!” He had snapped. He doesn’t think that it was his words but his tone. He can still vividly see her roughly tossing it into his laundry basket with a muttered, “you really don’t but fine.”

She didn’t leave and he didn’t ask her too but she was silent until he mustered up the courage to ask if she just wanted to get to the movie. She hesitated before saying yes. And then he makes a mistake of his own. He suggested one of the few movies they always watch. It was innocent enough when she suggested a movie that he had never heard of. A movie that came out during his absence. She mentioned that it was a popular one and that it would probably help to see it so he can jump into conversations about it. She added that she would show him a few new songs too. He was already too disgruntled to appreciate that she’d mentioned that they were reggaeton specifically. 

In retrospect it is a good idea. He should have taken the offer. It would have been logical and smart. Instead he complained. Complained and insisted on one of the old movies until she sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose, and left with a final comment, “let me know when you’re ready to move forward.”

He overheard a hasty exchange of goodbyes between she and his parents. He had asked Katara to talk to her for him when she had the opportunity. 

That was the first fight, there were several more over things so mundane he can’t remember what they were. The fighting grew more intense when school resumed. This is no surprise to him, the first week of school leaves her grumpy like clockwork. It always had since he could remember. 

Currently they sit on the patio of the Cod Shack. Soft gusts weave around tables and chairs. They are a bit too strong for his liking and he has to set his soda on his napkins and menu to keep them from blowing away. He watches the patio lights sway and looks to the clouds. They are still white but the forecasters have called for a light but steady rain. 

“So did you pick out any colleges yet?” 

He knows that her senior year has only just begun, but he also knows that she is always prepared leagues ahead of everyone else. 

She hums in thought. “I  _ did _ …”

“But?”

“I was going to try to surf professionally and get a higher education on the side. I have something else in mind now.” 

“Which is?” He presses. 

“A surprise.” She smirks. 

“Oh come on!” He throws his hands up with a laugh. “Don’t I get a hint.” 

She ponders it. “During my high seas adventure I unlocked a hidden talent.”

“Another one?” 

“There will be more to come, don’t worry.” She pauses. “I already know where I want to go so I can help you re-apply to some of the colleges. I actually already have a few ideas for when you begin applying for scholarships. You have quite a story to tell and…”

He doesn’t mean to but he tunes her out, her voice lost beneath a rushing current of unease. She has already done the hard work for him and yet he still feels horribly overwhelmed. 

College? Scholarships? Letter? He just got back. He doesn’t want to think about scholarships. He doesn’t want to think about the future at all. And Azula keeps smacking him in the face with it. A new feeling mixes in his belly with the fear. It takes him a moment to process it as anger. No; mild agitation. 

Why can’t she just let him be and stop hounding him?

If he were thinking logically, he would remind himself of who he is talking to. Would remind himself that she would--that she already  _ has  _ treated herself the same way.

He heaves the itching irritation aside and changes the subject. “Have you made up with Jet yet?”

Azula sighs. He expects her to steer the conversation back on track. “No, he won’t talk to me. Unless it’s surf team related.” She pauses. “But it’s fine, I have you and pretty much everyone else. Helping father with AA and the lighthouse keeps me busy enough after school…”

Again he finds himself zoning out. He doesn’t know how she does it; plans for further education, attends surf practice, manages the lighthouse, and helps Ozai with AA, all while attending school. His eyes wander to the scars on her arm and chin; a subtle reminder that she probably  _ is _ pushing herself too far. Farther than he could ever know. 

And what is he doing? Working one lax, family run job. 

He rubs his hands over his face. For all he knows she has done much more. He remembers her mentioning that she helped repair and remodel La-bsters. She’d already confessed that she’d let her mother die to save Zuko instead. 

He knows that he shouldn’t but he does. Curiosity gets the better of him so he asks, “I guess you’ve had an eventful summer then?”

Azula nods. She leans in and whispers, “Jet and I snuck out and had a few drinks.”

“That’s your big news?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m talking about the kid I stole from father after he told me to throw them out for him.” 

Sokka blinks. “ _ Oooh _ , those kinds of drinks…”

She nods and in his head he checks off one more thing that she has done before him. “Did you get…”

“Drunk?” She thinks for a moment. “No, not quite.” She backtracks, “maybe a little.”

“Is it because you have so much going on right now?”

“I’m not my father, Sokka, I have more control than that.” She picks up an onion ring. “It was a one time thrill. I just wanted to see what it was like.”

Just a simple life experience…

Simple and yet suddenly it feels like she is much older than he. His stomach turns again. 

**.oOo.**

Things are forced more often than not. He always seems so uncomfortable around her when she isn’t faking. He watches the same movies over and over again and the more she pushes for him to give a new release a try, the more furiously he pushes back. 

Everything is ‘remember this, remember that?’ Everything is a nostalgia trip and she wants to leave the vehicle. She wants to move away from the remember’s but she doesn’t want to move away from Sokka. 

She doesn’t think that he will leave her a choice if she doesn’t play along with his childish antics. He gets moody and frustrated and she is probably one more, ‘Sokka, let’s try something new’ away from a breakup.

So she forces a smile and bares another trip to the Cod Shack while Zuko and Katara meet Aang and Toph at the new arcade. He is blabbering on and on about how good it is to be home; she doesn’t mind this, this is actually rather adorable. But then the ‘I’m happy to be home’ spiel spirals into how great it is that she is willing to stick to ‘the good stuff’ and not that ‘stupid new arcade.’ 

She doesn’t have the heart to tell him that she goes to the arcade with Zuko and Katara when he takes up his shifts at La-bsters. 

He pushes in their chairs, “let’s walk along the beach, I was thinking that we could build sand castles like old times!” He holds up a pail and a blue plastic shovel. 

“Sure, Sokka.” 

“Are you okay?” He asks. “You seem unhappy.” 

“I’m fine.”

“In other words, something’s bothering you. Is it your dad?”

“No, father has been great. He’s getting his life together and moving forward.” She is too slow to keep the emphasis on ‘moving forward’ out of her voice. “I’m fine Sokka, let’s go to the beach.” 

Sokka’s expression brightens so much that she almost doesn’t mind the prospect of building sandcastles like children. But that charm only lasts until they are on the beach and she spies Chan, Ruon, and most of the surf team.

Chan gives her a wave that she returns with a fluttering stomach. She takes the shovel that Sokka extends to her. 

“What brings the two of you to the beach?” Chan greets. 

Azula’s phone buzzes and Zuko’s name flashes across the screen; he is bragging about finally beating Toph at one of several of her favorite arcade games. 

“We were just going to build sand castles!” Sokka declares proudly. 

“Like kiddie sand castles?” Ruon asks.

“That’s right.” He is much bolder than he ought to be and her cheeks grow gently pink on his behalf. 

“Actually, Sokka, father just texted. I have to go home and help him make a repair to the lighthouse.” The look of disappointment on his face leaves her feeling rather horrible. And the drive home seeps with an atmosphere of letdown. It only grows as they get closer to the lighthouse. “Maybe tomorrow, Sokka? Would that be fine.”

“Yeah, tomorrow.” His smile is as forced as her enjoyment of their dates. 

“Alright, I’ll see you after surf practice.” She leans in for a kiss.

She feels no spark. 

She hates to think it, much less say it, but it feels like kissing a kid or a little brother. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka flops down upon his head and puts the heels to his eyes. He is potently aware that he is blowing it! He knows his options; he can cling to the way things used to be and lose Azula or he can embrace the changes with her. 

Still, he isn’t ready to leave his childhood behind. Not when it was so bright and so happy. He isn’t ready to take on the world and leave the shores that he loved. Not so soon after he has gotten back. Not ever. 

He picks up one of several pictures of he and Azula. They are kids, they are looking at the camera and smiling. She holds a fishing pole with the smallest fish he has ever seen. He is holding a tackle box. 

He swallows. 

Fishing had been a new experience at one point. La-bsters had been new at one point. Going from swimming at the eastern beach to the western beach had been a change…

He swallows once more. He supposes that he wouldn't have met Azula at all if not for one simple and subtle change.

One simple and subtle change that made him feel so much happier for years to follow. He rubs his hands over his face. Tomorrow is going to be an awful day.

**.oOo.**

Azula takes a seat on the lighthouse patio and watches for Sokka’s car. She tries to prep herself for a night of silly activities and pretending to enjoy them. 

She wonders if she should skip the faking and feeling sparing and break things off. She has already broken Jet’s sensitive heart, she may as well continue her streak. 

She spies his headlights and hears the pops and snaps of the gravel. Hears the car door slam and the sound of Sokka’s sneakers shuffling up the driveway. He gives a sheepish wave and a, “hey.” Maybe he knows what is coming.

“Hello, Sokka.” She pauses and opens her mouth to speak. 

“Uh...so I left the pails and shovels at home.” 

Her chest floods with relief. Though it quickly fades as she processes what that likely means. She guess that she will let him rip the bandaid. “Then what are we supposed to do?”

“I was hoping to maybe just go to the boardwalk or something. Or we can stay here. I just want to talk.”

She hears the door creak slightly ajar. “We can stay here and talk if father will give us some privacy.” She hears the door shut once more. “He has been a little board without the bar.”

Sokka laughs. “He knows that he can go to the bar and order a soda or something, right?”

“He isn’t ready to be that close to the bar yet.” She shrugs. “Anyways, let's get this talk over with.”

He gnaws on his lip. “I’ve been gone for kind of a long time.”

“Yes. What of it.”

“So I missed a lot.”

“We’ve established this, yes.” 

“And I was wondering, are you still willing to help catch me up?”

She thinks for a moment. “No.” She replies. His world seems to fall apart. “I’ll help you get ahead.” 

He still tears up but she is certain that it is with relief and joy. “I looked up some of those movies that you mentioned. Or maybe you can show me some of the new restaurants on the boardwalk.”

“How about the arcade.” 

“I don’t like arcade games.” 

She rolls her eyes. “Let’s go see a movie. If you would like, we can rent one and watch it in your room like we usually do.” 


	33. Some Quaint Harbor Towns

There are places where lives unfold and places where lives come to an end, more often than not these places are one and the same. Sometimes these places are quaint harbor towns where buildings are centuries older than any of the citizens currently hustling in and out of them. Sometimes these places are have cliffsides that are older than even the buildings, worked at and eroded by waves significantly more timeless than them.

Often these cliffsides see thunderous clouds and tempestuous waves, lit by forks of lightning and filled by curtains of rain. And more often than folks like to admit, these towns have their ghosts; sails on the horizon during a storm, ladies in billowing white dresses that stand at the edge of cliffs, and speters that travel through arches of limestone. It might be that the towns folk get bored and invent legends, or perhaps it is a tourist thrill, still it could be that some of the inhabitants need a good ghost to keep them secure in the realm of the living.

In such a town, the rain could be pouring and lightning could be bursting in the sky. People might be rushing to pack in their picnic food and snatch up their umbrellas. Some of them are too late, like a boy named Jet and a girl named Jin. Their umbrella has lifted out of the sand and is riding the gales out towards the sea. It wasn’t his idea of what a date should look like, but at least it was a thrilling one. 

Others have more luck on their side; more or less. A married couple could be safely tucked into their restaurant had they decided to take down their patio umbrellas and move their chairs inside sooner. 

Inside of a restaurant called La-bsters there is a rather interesting cluster of people. Mostly there are tourists and people who have hustled into the building for shelter from the rain. But there are also two teens interviewing for their first jobs. A girl will venture out of the town for the first time to study marine biology and her friend, Toph will take her place waitressing for the restaurant. There is also a bald boy and his dog, the three are an inseparable duo and Aang swears that he will teach the dog to be a good employee too.

The restaurant is cozy. It is home. In a quaint harbor town that seems caught within a bygone era, anywhere is home really. It is no wonder that some people are hesitant to leave. When home is so warm and inviting, so safe and unchanging, why would a person ask to leave?

For some it is a need for change, a yearning for something new. A desire to see the world with a knowing that they can come back to their harbor town and see it nearly as it was when they had left. 

Nearly, but not quite. For everything evolves. Everything changes. And if you know a place well, then the most subtle of changes are extraordinarily profound. 

The rain pummels the roof of La-bsters as Toph high fives Aang, “Congrats on your first summer job, Twinkle Toes!” 

“Yeah, you too.” He smiles meekly.

“When do we start?” She asks. 

“How about on the first day that we have some sunny weather?” Hakoda offers.

A table away sits a group of four, they split a platter of fries, onion rings, and hot wings. Azula douses the wings in an extremely generous amount of spicy dipping sauce. “Seriously, I can’t eat this!” Sokka exclaims, eyes watering. “My mouth is burning!”

Azula smirks. “Yes, that’s the point. Either you’re going to build up your spice tolerance or I am going to have all of the wings to myself.” 

“Not if I can help it.” Zuko plucks one of the wings. He takes his first bite. After swallowing he clears his throat. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something, Katara.”

“Go ahead.” 

“We’re still having a hard time building the lighthouse back up after how far behind we’ve fallen. I was planning on opening up a restaurant of my own. It’s going to be more like a bakery and I’ll run it from the lighthouse.” 

“My idea.” Azula cuts in.

“I thought that it would be smart to…” He backtracks. “ _ Azula _ thought that it would be smart to partner up with La-bsters. It’s going to be folklore and ghost story themed and stuff. Do you think that your parents would want that.” 

“Ask them, Zuko.” Katara laughs. “They’ve never said no before!” 

“Speaking of parents, how has your dad been?” Sokka asks, nostrils still flared from his second attempt to eat one of the wings. He fans his face.

“He’s a year sober now.” Azula replies. 

“He and uncle are planning some kind of road trip to relive the glory days.”

“Why are you cringing?” Katara laughs. 

“Do you know what their glory days looked like?” Zuko asks.

“Father just wants to make up for wasting so much of his time on drinks and grief.” Azula shrugs. Silently, she thinks that he just wants to enjoy one more summer before life moves on. Or maybe she is just projecting; for as much as she had fought Sokka on it, it would be nice to have one last summer where everything is as it was, simple and thrilling. Now that she has eliminated his hesitancy, she will indulge him in one more summer of old habits and nostalgia. 

She will begin it with one final surf competition and end it with the annual beachview music festival. That will be nice, considering that they’d missed last year’s. She peers at her surfboard, which she has propped up against the corner. She is going to miss it, how could she not when she had spent so much time riding waves on it? But it is time to put it aside, the sea calls her in a different direction and she has already made the necessary arrangements to answer it.

And besides, she thinks it would be kind to allow Chan and Ruon their time to shine. They have more passion for the sport than she. They have worked their whole lives for that competition.

They will be performing Port TuiLa’s first partner routine. ‘Brave and risky! Daring and fun!’ So the townspeople declare. She will do her own routine, but it will be more lax and mundane. Her father and uncle will be there with bouquets of hibiscus, lais, and smoothies, weather she wins it or not. There will be a party in their backyard, a BBQ that doubles as her birthday party and her victory celebration. 

She will slip an invite to Jet; if he makes an appearance it will be just like old times. If he steers clear...she supposes that, that is just the nature of things. People get hurt and people grow apart. 

“Go and ask them, Zuzu.” She nudges as Hakoda enters the building completely drenched. 

Zuko takes a deep breath, stands, and rolls his shoulders. Azula rolls her eyes. “So dramatic. How long have we known them?” 

Katara laughs and gently pushes him forward. 

“Have you decided what you are going to do yet?” Azula asks.

Sokka bites down gently on his cheek. “Khozen has been teaching me to sail again. I know that you wanted me to leave Port TuiLa but I don’t think I’m ready for a change that big and I don’t really like the idea of college anyways.” He rubs the back of his head. “I was thinking of learning to fish, that way I can help bring in some seafood for La-bsters and be around for mom and dad after Katara leaves.” 

Azula blinks. “That actually sounds like a good plan.”

He chuckles, albeit, a little nervously. “Yeah. I figured that, that way I could start something new but also stick to the place that makes me happy.” He pauses. “It’s just gonna be weird not having you guys around.” He gestures to she and Katara. 

“You’ll have Zuko.” Katara points out. 

“We’re trying to make him feel  _ better _ , Katara.”

“I can still hear you guys!” Zuko calls. 

Sokka gives a snorting laugh. The kind that works its way around the table and reaches the door. From its frame a sopping wet Mai remarks, “well that’s my one laugh for today.” 

“What are we talking about?” TyLee asks.

“Plans for the future.” Azula pulls up a chair. 

“Suki and I are going to beauty school! She wants to learn to do special effects makeup. I’m going to make everyone in Port TuiLa beautiful!”

“Good luck with Long Feng.” Mai mumbles and helps herself to a french fry. “I’m going to study mortuary science. It’ll give me something to talk about at dinner.” 

“What about you, Azula?” TyLee asks. “You still going to pro-surf?”

It hadn’t really taken much thought to decide, not when the path had made itself so clear. She shakes her head, “no, I have something different in mind.”

“Does father know?” Zuko asks, taking his seat.

“He will.” Azula replies. That is her only hang up, the prospect of disappointing him. But she thinks that her desired career is admirable enough. Surely it is indisputably well suited to her. “I’m going to be a coast guard. I already have experience, more than I should.” 

The sea has taken a lot from her but she has taken a lot back. And she will take more back, more and more until it doesn’t hurt. More and more until she knows that she can see her mother again with the ability to inform her that her death didn’t amount to nothing. The waves may have stolen her life but they haven’t stolen the energy she put forth. 

The sea will take more lives, likely it will take them right out of Azula’s hands. But it will take less than it would have if she gets her way. 

“Thanks to you,” she looks at Sokka, “and all the attention that your story got, I think that my chances are very good.” 

“Hey, can we stop talking about the future now and start living in the moment!?” Toph calls. “I’ve got five dollars for the jukebox and twenty for the arcade.” 

“How about we spend twenty on the jukebox and five on the arcade?” Sokka asks. 

Azula elbows him. “Do you even know twenty dollars worth of  _ good  _ songs?”

“I know plenty of amazing tracks!” 

She slings her arm around him. “Your music taste is still stuck on hits from ten years ago.” 

And so they listen to twenty dollars worth of songs that she hasn’t heard since they were kids. Their summer starts with the past and plays out as it always has, right until when the leaves would start to change. And just as they always have, they close the summer with an all night music festival on the beach. Sparklers, smoke bombs, and melting ice cream cones. Fireworks and kisses and the same gaggle of friends. The same group plus one, not that Jin hadn’t been an amusing addition. 

**.oOo.**

It only makes sense that she departs on a stormy night. Her car is loaded and the remaining tents and banners of her goodbye party flap in the wind. Sokka presses his head to her forehead and gives her a rather lengthy kiss. Long enough to have her father retreating back into the house to fetch her a parting gift. She won’t open it until she reaches boot camp. It is a simple photo album that her mother had made. 

She pulls out of the kiss and Ozai hands her the giftbox. “Your mother would be proud.”

“And you?”

Ozai sighs. “I think that you already know the answer to that.” He ruffles her hair. He hasn’t done that in ages. “I best see you in a uniform when you visit for the holidays.” 

“You will, father.” She smiles. 

“Take care of father?” Azula requests quietly to Zuko. “Keep him on track, okay?”

“I’ll keep him busy.” Zuko promise with a gesture to the lighthouse and his brand new business. “Trust me, I will.”

She doesn’t doubt it in the slightest. “Alright, well I’m getting soaked so…” 

“I’ll see you later, Azula.” 

She nods and gives a little wave.

Sokka puts his arm around her and leads her to her car. She buckles herself in and turns her head for one final kiss. “Call me when you get there.” It isn’t a question. “Of course I will, Sokka.” She answers anyhow. He waves again and she rolls up her window. Windshield wipers throw drops off of the window as she steers her way down the winding lighthouse driveway.

The Sea Candle rests on the cliff shining her way as it always has. And it will be there to guide her home when the day comes. She casts one final look at the town in her rearview mirror. She can swear that, in the beam of the lighthouse she can see faint sails, bobbing haphazardly in the waves.


End file.
